Addiction became a global scourge, and prohibition gradually became the norm. But outlawing these substances gave rise to the first drug-trafficking networks, which often sought to operate under state protection. These networks underwent unprecedented growth during the Cold War when secret services used the drug trade as a political instrument. The United States paid the price for this: In 1970, one-third of their troops in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. A year later, in an historic speech, President Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs.

Pablo Escobar was the most notorious, but there was also Toto Riina in Sicily, Khun Sa in the Golden Triangle, and Felix Gallardo in Mexico, all of whom changed the destinies of their respective territories by taking drug trafficking to a global scale. They defied states and threatened the powers-that-be. It took almost 20 years for states to get organized and come up with strategies to bring down the drug barons.

The trade has shifted to areas beyond law and order, like war zones in Afghanistan, or areas with guerilla activity like Colombia. Designer drugs, which are easy to manufacture and conceal, play a key role in the transformation of the traffic. In Mexico, the cartels have dragged the whole country into a merciless spiral of violence – wherever one looks, the toll of the war on drugs makes for grim reading. This poses the question: Is it time to legalize drugs, radically changing the current situation and perhaps the way we perceive them?