Shoot to thrill, play to kill
Too many crooks, too many pills
(AC/DC, slightly revised)
Venezuelan regime change intervention of January 3, 2026 is largely presented as the “War on Drugs.” While anyone is free to use any slogan for any justification, I want to jump into a bit of history in this regard.
The War on Drugs was initially declared by the Nixon administration in the 70’s, classifying the drug abuse problem as “public enemy number one.” It was largely expanded during the Reagan era. This resulted in longer, harsher sentences, new substances such as cannabis (marijuana) being classified as drugs, and a surge in the number of criminal cases.
At about the same time, there were policy changes (80’s — 90’s) that made private prisons legally plausible, financially attractive, and politically acceptable. As a result, there was a surge in privately owned state prisons, the so-called “great prison-building boom.” Private owners and operators needed inmates, and the more, the better.
Slightly prior to that, many new legal mind-altering drugs came into existence, such as benzodiazepines, other antidepressants, and later Prozac and the like. Pharma companies badly needed a market and hated the competition. The alcohol industry was very much in the same category.
Where is the chicken and where is the egg? It’s an everlasting question with no definite answer, and that’s the beauty of it, the nature of the beast when it comes to politics. At the very least, it’s a very curious coincidence, isn’t it?
At that time, the political system served its masters and largely itself, while using rhetoric and appealing to the general public, a.k.a. voters. After all, who needs their kids to be druggies? Fifty years have passed. Marijuana is legalized in most states. Pharma and alcohol are ever-powerful. The inmate population in privately owned prisons didn’t go anywhere.
But the slogan lost its appeal and glory. Time to resurrect it? Oh yes — now for a completely different purpose: regime change in a neighboring continent. The War on Drugs is sold to us in the form of a real military operation, contrary to international law, with no apparent benefits to us as a country or to the people living in it.
The real war on drugs would, and should be an internal one. Many synthetics are made and distributed domestically on a large scale. Big Pharma has made a large chunk of the population addicts looking for more and more of the substance, legally and “medically proven.” Not just adults and people in general. There’s Prozac for cats and dogs too (fluoxetine, Reconcile). This nation effectively fought tobacco smoking, almost to the point of elimination compared to Europe and Asia.
Cui bono (benefit to whom)? First, it seems the sporadic imagination of our unpredictable leader is the main beneficiary. I’d rather accept (yet, personally strongly disagree with) the oil-related factor. At the very least, it follows some inner logic:
— Venezuela has a lot of oil;
— The USA has a lot of military power, number one in the world;
— The president (to clarify: of Venezuela) is a crook, and the regime is horrible by our standards;
— Yes, we can!
I am not in support of this in the slightest. Countries, large and small, own their territory and what lies beneath. People in these countries own the society they live in. Using soft power (economics, diplomatic pressure, even embargo in extreme cases) to influence them is perfectly acceptable — and, in my opinion, the most effective. The military path rarely works, usually creating more problems than it was intended to solve.
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January 5, 2026