Reply to comment

And both countries were Communist, totalitarian dictatorships. Mao Zedong, for example, did greatly reduce China's opium problem, but at a great cost. He had opium users killed, and sometimes even their families as well. Was it really worth it?

Don't know much about East Germany though. But even if they were successful, it appears that you can either have a drug-free society, or a free society, but NOT both. And even that was probably not completely drug free, and I'm fairly sure there was plenty of alcohol and tobacco as well.