drug war
22
3.7
- noun
- /drʌg wɔr/
- NSFW
:
guerra contra las drogas
- Mexico's drug war is the great shadow hanging over the southern side of the border.
- fight the drug war
- drug war discourse
We have been paying for that drug war for how long?
- We have been paying for that drug war for how long?
- And, you know, this drug war is stupid.
- It might include sort of broader conversations about the drug war that must change.
- So there is on the drug war side, a machine that's fueling the drug war.
- And this is obviously such a a terrible legacy of of the drug war.
- Broken clock is right twice a day, but it's other countries like China, Russia, Iran that are fighting the drug war the hardest, I think.
- Even though you don't know it, a lot of your tax money's going down there and funding companies that make a living off that drug war, keeping its status status quo.
- And it's mostly indigenous Hawaiians there who are bearing the brunt of the drug war and the kind of war on crime.
- And he started the drug war trying to basically remove the the chemical infrastructure of the counterculture.
- But the, the, the, the drug war has really been exposed as a failure.
- It's the absence of drug war and central planning.
- You know, schools, families and the drug war.
- And he did have a bunch of stuff in there that I guess was used against him in his the drug wars down there.
Examples
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To what extent is it feasible to fight the "drug war" abroad (and should it be fought there)?
Academic text (1993) -
Law enforcement agencies are struggling to find effective solutions in the ongoing drug war.
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We have been paying for that drug war for how long?
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I mean, the victims of the drug war are the drug users, right?
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We lost more in the drug war in Mexico over the last couple of years alone.
Blog text (10) -
Too much corruption in the drug war... time to end it.
Blog text (14) -
Consistent throughout America's experience with drug control is that the narrative of a drug war has been about more than just drugs.
Academic text (2015) -
Some experts favor legalizing narcotics, putting an end to the drug war once and for all.
Blog text (11) -
For all practical purposes, the U.S. drug war is still going strong and is even being dangerously ratcheted up in Central America.
Academic text (2012) -
And it's mostly indigenous Hawaiians there who are bearing the brunt of the drug war and the kind of war on crime.
Synonyms
2
6.3
Efforts to stop illegal drug production, distribution and use
Antonyms
How Intense
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is a straightforward composition of 'drug' (illegal substances) and 'war' (an organized conflict or campaign), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a conflict/campaign against drugs. The figurative use of 'war' as a campaign is common cross-linguistically (e.g., 'war on X'), making the expression predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Drug war uses the words drug and war to make a strong picture: it treats the fight against illegal drugs like a real war, with police, laws, and violent clashes. That's why drug war means the long effort by governments and police 'to stop' the making and selling of illegal drugs.