> The DEA has no justification to exist, and the War on Drugs has been used to destabilize dozens of foreign regimes in order to benefit the US' neoliberal policies. It's now being used to take away even more rights as it's being used in part to justify ICE raids, and Trump's imperialist skirmish and attempted regime change in Venezuela. Additionally, the cartel has destroyed northern Mexico and now Trump is floating the idea of "cleaning up" Mexico.

You just explained the entire justification for it existing.

You've misunderstood my comment. The War on Drugs created these problems, it is not the solution to them.

We've done it here domestically too at least as far back as Prohibition. Prohibition ended in 33, we banned automatic weapons in 34, add in the racially-motivated disenfranchisement of Irish and Italian immigrants and ghettoization of their communities, and you got an unprecedented level of domestic organized crime and subsequent retroactively justified restriction of civil rights. [0]

The same happened again in the 80s with the Iran-Contra affair. [1]

The same continues to happen in my city and in many other cities every day, justifying racial and immigration-focused discrimination and allowing institutions to extract wealth from poor communities while ensuring their continued generational poverty.

I would recommend checking out Jack Herer's seminal The Emperor Wears No Clothes [2], especially chapters 5, 13 and 14. I'd also look into William Randolph Hearst [3], his involvement in drug prohibition, and the racially-motivated tactics used to make it happen, by first convincing Americans they should be racist against Mexican immigrants and then connecting these "dangerous" Mexican immigrants to cannabis.

Now, we're using fentanyl, etc. as an excuse, when the entire fentanyl trade thrives on the fact that secure, regulated facilities and distribution networks do not exist for many recreational drugs. The failings of the War on Drugs are perpetually used to circularly justify its existence, and it's shameful.

[0] https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/gangsters-pr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca... [2] https://www.jackherer.com/emperor-3/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst#Critic...