While many businesses are suffering, the illegal drug trade remains robust.

[In Holland] the illegal cannabis trade reached an estimated $3 billion with most demand coming from Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany but also from Scandinavian countries, where demand is on the rise

“We still have the image of people growing a few cannabis plants in the attic but what we’re really seeing is that organized criminals have long since taken over and they have turned this into big business…”

Three billion dollars of black market economy? This is just one controlled substance, and a relatively inexpensive one, at that. Yet, the last time I was in the ‘Dam (2003) the coffee shops in Amsterdam weren’t overrun by Uzi-wielding mafioso, or dreadlocked caricatures of Rastafied gangsters.

There is a reason why organized crime doesn’t traffic in cola, blue jeans, pumpkins, or christmas bulbs. Almost anybody can make and sell these things, almost anywhere in the world. Organized criminals can’t compete with legitimate businesses. Good trumps evil when people are free.

The war on drugs enables terrorism, domestically and abroad. Drugs are not the problem. Prohibition is the problem.