As accurate knowledge about drug effects and drug policies becomes more widespread, most people in most countries of the world will likely choose not to retain full-scale criminalized drug prohibition. Most places will eventually develop their own varied local forms of regulated personal cultivation and use of the once prohibited plants and substances. Many places will also eventually allow some forms of commercial growing, production, and sale â?? first of all and above all of cannabis, which is by far the most widely grown, traded, sold, and used illegal drug in the world.

All of this will take time. Prohibitionists and drug warriors in every country will fight tenaciously to maintain their local regimes. And enormous power will be employed to prevent the Single Convention of 1961 and its related treaties from being repealed, or even modified. As a result, in coming years, all around the world, there will be even greater public discussion and debate about drug prohibition, about criminalized drug policies, and about the world-wide movement within drug prohibition to decriminalize the possession and use of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and other substances.

As part of that process of conversation and debate, many more people will discover â?? often with considerable astonishment â?? that they have lived for decades within a regime of world-wide drug prohibition. That growing understanding will itself push world-wide drug prohibition closer to its end. Here in the 21st century, it may turn out that the most powerful force holding global drug prohibition in place is the secret of its existence.

http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/levine.secret.html