By their relentless consumption of illegal drugs, the American public drives a deadly crisis that claims the lives of Mexican citizens every day.

Few in the United States seem fully aware of how their demand for substances like marijuana and cocaine has turned Mexico’s interior into a war zone. The numbers are staggering: since 2018, over 30,000 Mexican citizens have died annually due to drug-related violence, adding up to more than 180,000 lives lost in six years. The bloodshed is a direct consequence of America’s voracious appetite for illicit substances.

Since President Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971, the U.S. government has poured more than $1 trillion into combating the illegal drug trade—roughly $3,100 for every American citizen. Yet, the results have been abysmal. Instead of curbing drug use, the demand has only grown, turning the war on drugs into a glaring policy failure that demands urgent rethinking.

Paradoxically, the most widely abused drug in the United States is not illegal. Alcohol remains deeply woven into the fabric of American life, yet it devastates families and communities on an unprecedented scale. An estimated 28.3 million Americans struggle with alcohol addiction. Despite its immense social harm, alcohol remains legal and widely available.

The disastrous Prohibition era of the 1920s offers a sobering lesson. After Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto to pass the Volstead Act in 1919, the country experienced a decade marked by violence, the shuttering of thousands of establishments, rising unemployment, and a significant loss of state revenue previously derived from alcohol taxes. The lesson: criminalization often does more harm than good.

Nicotine addiction, though less visible in the headlines, claims an even steeper toll. Some 23.6 million Americans struggle with nicotine dependency, and smoking kills 480,000 people in the U.S. every year. The economic costs of smoking—spanning medical treatments and lost productivity—likely run into the billions. Yet cigarettes are not only legal but heavily taxed by both federal and state governments, their sale perpetuated by the significant revenues they generate.

Marijuana, the third most-used drug in the United States, occupies an increasingly ambiguous space. As states gradually legalize its use, it’s becoming clear that many longstanding fears about marijuana lack scientific support. Claims that marijuana causes lung cancer remain inconclusive. A landmark study by the LaGuardia Committee in the 1930s spent five years investigating marijuana use, ultimately debunking numerous myths about the drug.

Despite this, a wave of alarmist propaganda followed, epitomized by films like Reefer Madness, which portrayed marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug while ignoring the deadly consequences of tobacco use, which now kills nearly half a million Americans annually.

Opioids, though used by a smaller segment of the population—approximately 2.7 million Americans—represent one of the most pressing drug crises in recent history. In 2020 alone, opioid overdoses claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Americans. Alarmingly, many of these deaths involved legally prescribed medications, highlighting the complexity of distinguishing between “legal” and “illegal” drug use.

Cocaine continues to attract recreational users with its euphoric effects, while simultaneously wreaking havoc on lives. Its history mirrors America’s earlier struggles with alcohol during Prohibition. Abuse of cocaine frequently leads to addiction, and in 2022, 27,569 Americans died from cocaine-related causes. Yet many of these deaths also involved opioids, complicating efforts to quantify cocaine’s specific impact.

The war on drugs has exacted a devastating toll. Over five decades, trillions of dollars have been spent in pursuit of a goal that remains as elusive as ever. Instead of reducing drug use, the U.S. has seen consumption rise, underscoring the futility of this approach. Continuing down this path seems irrational. A more sensible policy would be to remove marijuana and cocaine from the federal Schedule I drug list, allowing individual states to regulate or prohibit their use as they see fit.

Such a shift in policy would underscore the glaring inconsistencies in America’s drug laws. Legal substances like alcohol and tobacco kill 660,000 Americans annually, yet marijuana, a drug with no documented overdose deaths according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, remains federally prohibited. Cocaine deaths are rising but are often tied to the use of opioids, making it difficult to assess the drug’s isolated impact.

Legalization offers more than just a chance to align policy with reality; it presents a path to positive change. Federal and state governments could tax marijuana and cocaine sales, generating revenues to fund addiction outreach programs and help users of more dangerous substances, such as heroin and fentanyl, find a way out of dependency. Most importantly, legalizing these drugs would alleviate the immense suffering inflicted on Mexico. The end of prohibition would bring relief to the countless innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of a conflict driven by America’s demand for illegal drugs.

It’s time for the United States to acknowledge the harm its policies have caused, both at home and abroad. The war on drugs has failed. The question now is whether we are ready to embrace a saner, more humane approach.