Why we can’t win the drugs war

Last week, the Mexican authorities recaptured the notorious drug cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who made headlines when he escaped from a Mexican prison for the second time last July. El Chapo was Mexico's "most powerful kingpin, running a diversified portfolio of illicit products, including marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin, that operated in some 34 countries", says The Wall Street Journal.

The Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman ran, "is responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the US via Mexico", says Forbes. It earns at least $3bn a year from smuggling (the global market for illicit drugs is estimated by the United Nations and Europol to be around $435bn a year see the map below on cocaine and heroin prices in Europe).

Despite his crimes, El Chapo wasn't publicity shy. During his time on the run, he was speaking to film producers about putting together a biopic, going so far as to arrange for actor Sean Penn to interview him for Rolling Stone magazine. Indeed, it was apparently these attempts to court Hollywood that eventually led to his recapture.

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In the interview, Guzman defended his profession. In the region he came from, "the only way to have money to buy food, to survive, is to grow poppy, marijuana", he claimed. He also argued that he was just like any other businessman, creating a product to fulfil consumer demand: "if there was no consumption, there would be no sales".

Guzman may be onto something, says German Lopez on Vox.com. "The chances are Guzman's capture, like the captures and deaths of so many drug lords before him, will do nothing to stop the flow of drugs into the US." Even law enforcement officials accept that their efforts may be futile. In 2011 a study by the US Department of Homeland Security noted that high-profile arrests have "no perceptible pattern" on the level of drug seizures (a key indicator of smuggling).

Another problem is Guzman's replacements may be worse, says Ed Vulliamy in The Guardian. "Guzman is the last old-school don', the last Robin Hood narco." While undoubtedly a killer, "his serfs will tell you how he flew their sick child to hospital in his plane, gave flowers to the church on Mother's Day, provided electricity to a school". By contrast, the rival Zetas enforce their power through "sheer terror, not baronial patronage". If they are able to fill the vacuum, the violence can only get worse.

Ironically, a potential end to the futile war on drugs may be the one cloud on the horizon for the cartels. Looser US drug laws have caused the price of cannabis to fall from $100 per kilogram to $30 in the past four years, says Aaron Morrison of the International Business Times. While Mexico used to produce two-thirds of the cannabis consumed in the US six years ago, there's been a "decline in marijuana production in Mexico, along with a drop in illegal trafficking to the US". In response, Mexico's drug cartels have adapted by shifting production "toward illicit hard drugs, such as heroin".