[nswango]

This is complete rubbish. The peak years of the war on drugs had a variety of hard drugs available on street corners across all major cities.

At best it kept some amount of some drugs less visible in some suburbs and communities, while making it profitable for suppliers to cross those lines.

The main effect of the war on drugs was a level of incarceration outdoing almost any society in human history. The fact that the numbers jailed for victimless and quality of life 'crimes' kept going up is testament to the fact that there was hardly any effective deterrence.