Heroin, cocaine and cannabis always cost less. The quality of the substances, however, has increased significantly. This is a large-scale study. The researchers therefore believe: The global fight against the drug mafia is lost.

Proceed with severity against illegal drugs and the cartels behind it – which propagate politicians and police, apparently shows little effect. The global war on drugs is according to a study of failure. Not only is the supply of heroin, cocaine and cannabis in the U.S. and the EU continue unabated, the prices have fallen and also the quality has improved, according to the study published in the journal “BMJ Open” on Monday. The researchers examined data from seven for state programs that followed the evolution of the international drug market for more than a decade.

Three of the programs monitor the international drug trade, three focus on the U.S. market and one on the situation in Australia. According to the study fell in the United States between 1990 and 2007 the retail price of heroin, cocaine and cannabis in accordance with inflation at 81, 80 and 86 percent. At the same time, the average purity of drugs increased by 60, 11 and 161 percent. In 18 European countries fell between 2000 and 2009, the price of cocaine and heroin by 51 percent to 74 percent.

In Australia, the drug prices were partly sharply between 2000 and 2010: cocaine prices were down 14 percent, prices of heroin and cannabis declined by 49 percent each. “During this time, the seizure of drugs rose to major domestic markets in general,” write the researchers, led by Evan Wood from Vancouver in Canada. Nevertheless had fallen since 1990, while their quality has improved with few exceptions, the prices for illegal drugs.

“These results suggest that the expansion of efforts to control the global illicit drug market by enforcing the laws on failure are,” it said in the study. You should give a boost to supporters of a change of direction in drug policy. Especially in the countries in Central and South America, which are particularly affected by the war on drugs, there are considerations to decriminalize drugs and partly to provide their sale under state supervision, so as to remove the drug crime the ground.

A growing problem represent novel drugs that are spreading more rapidly in the U.S., but also in Europe. The EU Commission has recently proposed that these drugs can be quickly banned in the future. In the years 2009 to 2012, their number has tripled in the EU. This year, every week was reported more than another one of these new drugs.

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