The issue of drugs is being discussed from a deliberately wrong perspective in Turkey. This is not a problem that can only be explained by street crime, drug dealers or images of “successful operations”. Drugs are a consequence of the inequalities created by the market state, the retreat of the social state and the systematic isolation of youth in Turkey today.
Therefore, the issue is not a security issue, but one of political economy, public health and class.
Not the Bridge, the Backyard
For years, Turkey's geographical location has been described with the metaphor of a “bridge”. However, in the neoliberal era, this bridge has turned into a free passage for capital and a precarious passage for laborers and the poor. Drug networks stretching from Latin America to the Balkans are fueled not only by border vulnerabilities but also by unregulated finance, informal economy and political blindness.
The drug trade is no longer just a criminal activity; it has become an economy in which poverty, unemployment and futility are commodified. The customers of this market are no coincidence: The most vulnerable, the most precarious, the most hopeless.
If Age is Down, Responsibility is Up
The fact that the age of initiation into drugs has dropped to 12-13 cannot be explained by individual morality. It is the direct result of the marketization of the education system, the collapse of public spaces and the early introduction of children to the pressures of competition, debt and failure.
The fact that approximately %3 of the 15-34 age group has been in contact with drugs at least once is more than a percentage data, it is an indicator of a generation that has been rendered futureless. From a left perspective, the question is this:
Why are these young people turning to drugs?
Because the system offers them no meaning, no security, no future.
Image, No Policy
The state's reflex against drugs is largely based on the politics of spectacle. Images of operations, dramatic presentations, “historic blows”... However, this narrative deliberately avoids discussing the structural causes of the problem.
Here the media speaks the language of power: Drugs are presented as an abstract “threat” rather than a social consequence. Thus, poverty, unemployment, educational inequality and urban poverty are rendered invisible. The problem is individualized; the system is whitewashed.
The Criminal State is no Substitute for the Social State
The harshness of the Turkish Penal Code cannot compensate for the absence of a social state. Punishment-centered policies do not reduce addiction, but increase stigmatization and exclusion. As addicts are labeled as criminals, they withdraw from the health system and are pushed underground.
The experience of Portugal, the Netherlands and Canada shows this clearly:
The most effective policy against drugs is public health, free treatment, early intervention and social support. It is not “tolerance” that brings success in these countries; it is public responsibility.
A Left Solution is Possible
From a left perspective the solution is clear:
Drug policy should be moved from security to public health.
Education should be freed from the market logic; schools should teach life, not just exams.
Addicts should not be penalized; they should be referred to free and accessible treatment.
The fight against black money and organized crime must be carried out through real control of capital movements, not through token operations.
The media should amplify the public's demand for information and rights, not the government's language of fear.
Conclusion: This is a Class and Future Issue
Drugs destroy not only the individual but also the social fabric. But this destruction is no coincidence. Drugs spread wherever the welfare state retreats, the public sphere shrinks, and youth are condemned to competition and loneliness.
Silence is not neutrality.
Punishment is not the solution.
Demonstration is not politics.
Drugs come silently.
But what comes after that, is social collapse.