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He explained this through what he called the “balloon effect” -- pressing down on one part of an inflated balloon makes another part pop out -- which was what happened when the opium trade shifted from China to Burma (now Myanmar) to Afghanistan.

“You can't suppress all parts equally at all times,” he said.

And because addictive substances are also seen a luxury goods, coveted because they are expensive or illicit, demand does not respond in ways normally expected. Even if prices go up, users will not necessarily stop consuming them, especially once they are severely addicted, Collins said.

“Let's imagine the market dynamics: we're at a stable equilibrium in the Philippines prior to President Duterte's intervention. President Duterte unleashes the police force on the drug market. And so maybe in the short term, maybe in the immediate term you see some contraction in supply because there's just very easy, low-hanging fruit to catch ... Price increases very quickly, because there is still that sense of certain consumers are going to continue to want to consume and all of these other factors. So you see a sharp increase in price,” he said.


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Neither, he said, would Duterte's aggressive approach work in the way he expects it to.

He pointed to Mexico, where it was thought that if the high-level players in drug cartels were taken out, the syndicates would cease to operate. What happened was the mid-level members warred with each other to gain control of territory, leading to an “exponential rise in violence.”

The assumption in the Philippines that all one has to do is to murder enough people and the trade will stop and shift to something else is “not a realistic assumption,” Collins stressed, pointing out that people are caught up in the drug trade for various reasons, not just because they're “evil.”

He recalled a visit to a coca farm in rural Colombia, which took him two hours by plane from Bogota, two more hours by cab, and another two hours by boat.

While “get them to grow something else” is often prescribed for communities that grow coca and similar plants, Collins said this has nothing to do with the realities they face. In the case of the Colombian farm, he said it was an area so remote it was unreasonable to expect people to grow coffee or tomatoes and haul these to market.

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He cited the kidnapping and murder of Korean businessman Ji Ick-Joo, allegedly by personnel of the police Anti-Illegal Drugs Group who even demanded the victim’s wife pay a ransom even after they had killed him.

“This is not unusual,” Collins said. “This is not something where anyone who looks at the drug policy will say, 'Oh wow, that was unpredictable’.” Collins said.

Although governments have the idea that the war on drugs will be waged against the bigwigs, in the United States, Europe, and Latin America, it is the poor and minority peoples who end up in jail while the elites remain untouched. Meanwhile, policies that drive enforcers to “do strange things” allow “opportunistic” persons to exploit -- and profit -- from the situation through, say, extortion.

“Who actually bears the cost of the war on drugs?” Collins asked. He pointed to the “significant economic costs” from the loss of human capital and noted it often takes decades for affected communities to recover after their “social fabric” has been disrupted.

In the US, Collins said, some black communities hardly have any men left because of mass incarceration, and the people who engage in the drug trade become younger and younger. There are no male role models; how will this affect the children and their children?

Nevertheless, Collins said such repressive and, eventually, futile approaches to fighting drugs remained popular around the globe until the AIDS epidemic of the late 20th century, when injecting drugs was confirmed to be “a key vector” in the spread of the disease. This led to what is now the more widely accepted approach to the problem, looking at it through the lens of public health and working to reduce the harm from drug use.

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Mag-iyahay na lang una tag bangag karong panahona...

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wa molambo nga economiya sa nasod para sa katawhan.. kung ang tawo mapasagaron mao makapokan sa kagawasan.. kung ugaling naa economiya gilambo dili para sa katawhan, kung dili economiya lang sa mga DILAW mga opportunista sila ra mabolahan... di bali economiya nga dili pa molambo karon panahona ang tunay nga economiya, unahon na mga skalwag pokanon.. soonest the sun will raise from east brings the true economic way of living..

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