Prohibitionism is a war of governments against their own citizens
Danilo Anton

The demons created by the industrial society seem to want to kill their own inventors.   
Trafficking and consumption of illicit substances have spread like wildfire throughout the industrialized world. 
No corner in the so called “rich countries” is free from this "evil".
Of little use are international police efforts, the imagination of consumers, traders and producers seem to always be one step ahead of the repressive efforts of the authorities.
As repression deepens, the price of the “drug” increases to consumers, augmenting economic incentives to produce and sell it.
The repression of consumption is very difficult, perhaps impossible. Potential consumers are many. 
All individuals in the society can, in a particular context, become addicted to drugs. 
This happens even within the repressive forces themselves, among political decision makers or policy makers, and, of course, within their families and social circles.
In a society that favors hedonistic values, the last sensuous escape are psychoactive drugs. 

The rich have the money to buy them.
Although drugs are expensive, there will be always people willing to pay exorbitant sums to procure  the banned substance. 
The poor do not have the money to obtain the goods easily. For that reason they are driven to secure them by other means. The repression of drug production and consumption fuels crime.
The traffickers, who are forced to confront the powers of the states, must create their own devices to counter the repressive action. Multifaceted and international criminal organizations, private armies appear. The drug money floods and “contaminate” all fields of the economy and society.
Political, professional, military and business people are involved in this traffic.
Favored by globalization, money laundering produced by drugs has become an important element in the global economy. 
There is no political will or actual interest in financial institutions to exercise any significant control.
In many cases, the alleged fight against drugs, has a double standard, there is no real provision for the trafficking and consumption, and the drug war is used as an excuse to achieve other political ends, such as to repress social movements, peasant rebellions, grassroots guerrilla warfare, etc.
Farmers in poor countries find in the agricultural production of prohibited plants a source of income that can not be achieved with other crops.
These farmers are very vulnerable to repression. In general, they are not organized to confront police and military forces, and are easy victims of the repressive operations, burning and confiscation of crops, poisoning defoliants, arrest, abuse and killing of the repressive forces at the service of governments and international economic interests.
Global authorities insist in combating the poorest farmers in some of the most isolated and underprivileged regions.
They use all the possible political, economic and military resources.
In this unequal struggle is the poor who pay the most expensive price. Traffickers have operating bases and hideouts, planes, helicopters and a lot of money. Peasant producers, however, can not escape, their only recourse is the land and the will to plant. Because of their vulnerability they are subject to arbitrariness and abuse.  In these countries corrupt governments, spurred by the imperial and transnational pressure, are combating theirs own citizens without offering other viable alternatives.
From "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones.