China

Last week, China admitted that it is losing the war on drugs.
This week, Taiwan said that it needs China’s help in winning the war on drugs (Taiwan apparently doesn’t read the news).
So what happened? China officials blame “globalization and freer trade.” On the other hand, Jeordie White, a clueless English teacher in Beijing who’s allowed to write for newspapers claims that China has been silent on the cause, and goes ahead himself to blame… globalization and freer trade, particularly because of the Chinese government’s cooperation with Nigerians (blaming Africans for use of drugs – what a novel concept).
Remember that China is a country that still regularly executes drug traffickers and sent 273,000 people to compulsory drug treatment last year.
Sure, to some extent globalization helps the knowledge of the latest trends in illicit drugs to propagate, but the fact of the matter is — people use drugs. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And they will use drugs no matter how oppressive the efforts are to suppress them. And no government (even one that is as oppressive as China’s) can stop it. Period.
What they can do is make the overall use of drugs less dangerous to society by eliminating prohibition and instituting harm reduction policies and regulation.