The global war on drugs has failed. Readers should not take my word for this. It is the opening sentence of a report on the failures of prohibition from an independent Global Commission on Drug Policy. What makes this report astonishing is not its content, now widely accepted among disinterested people, but who is associated with it.

Among signatories are George Shultz, former US secretary of state, Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico and Javier Solana, former European Union high representative for foreign and security policy. Salute them all. They are honourable people prepared to state that the policy on which the world has engaged for decades, at the behest of the US, is a disaster

While failing to reduce the ills of drug use at which it is addressed, it has created massive “collateral damage”: the spread of avoidable diseases; use of drugs in dangerous forms; mass criminalisation and incarceration; a gigantic waste of public resources; corruption; creation of a cross-border network of organised crime; and the subversion of states. Mexico is perhaps the most important contemporary victim. It is a war with myriad innocent victims.