Makes sense. To stick with the false premise core to the article, one would have to avoid much discussion of the organized crime aspects of the truly massive black market that the war on drugs created. How that organized crime affects communities through non-stop fear and intimidation, how it sucks in desperate people, how it perpetuates an endless cycle of crime and poverty that is centered around the profit system of the illegal drug trade.

Of course this is already a well understood effect. Which makes the article's intentional evasion of it that much more blatant. Whether we were to discuss the effects of organized crime around alcohol prohibition, or the Mexican cartels. One need look no further than what the war on drugs has done to hundreds of Mexican towns and cities, to understand what it has done to the black communities in the US in the last ~50 years.

If you engage in a trade that carries 10+ year sentences if you get caught and you suspect someone you know is going to snitch, you might think twice about letting them live. This applies to all vice crimes, not just drugs.