It’s interesting. The problem of drugs and their profitability is directly correlated to the degree of general malaise in First World Countries. I mean - we are blowing up the drugs, we are locking up the drug lords, but what are we doing about the unhappiness or otherwise emotional poverty of the people living in ”First World” countries who feel they need the drugs to make themselves more happy...

oops... to complete that thought - we are doing nothing about the demand side of the supply and demand equation, or at least what is being done is so thoroughly ineffectual that it is achieving little. It might be suggested that people in ”rich” countries are demonstrating a poverty of spirit as evidenced in their high intake of chemicals to unbalance themselves temporarily. In other places, sometimes, religion may do the same thing. At the heart of all of this is the question of just why is the system of consumerism, capitalism and market economy-driven social reality failing people so badly in their inner lives that they feel they require chemical assuages for their pains and incompleteness.

Chemicals (some may argue - just like some aspects to fundamentalism in any manifestation) do not solve problems. They just make previous problems look smaller by making bigger new ones and in this way, the addict, the chemical-dependent may live a life as though in a row-boat: moving forward while all the time looking backward.