There’s some truth to what you say, but treaty provisions with the U.S. are far from the only reason for near-universal drug prohibition worldwide (and even if treaty provisions with the U.S. were the main issue, this wouldn’t help the argument that the War on Drugs is driven by race issues, as the U.S. would not get any benefit in “controlling” its black population from having other nations ban drug use internally). But here is a very good history and discussion of this issue:
I’ll quote the part that’s most relevant and that shows drug prohibition isn’t being motivated primarily by treaties or U.S. power/persuasion:
In the last eighty years, nearly every political persuasion and type of government has endorsed drug prohibition. Capitalist democracies took up drug prohibition, and so did authoritarian governments. German Nazis and Italian Fascists embraced drug prohibition, just as American politicians had. Various Soviet regimes enforced drug prohibition, as have its successors. In China, mandarins, militarists, capitalists, and communists all enforced drug prohibition regimes. Populist generals in Latin American and anti-colonialist intellectuals in Africa embraced drug prohibition. Over the course of the 20th century, drug prohibition was supported by liberal prime ministers, moderate monarchs, military strongmen, and Maoists. It was supported by prominent archbishops and radical priests, by nationalist heroes and imperialist puppets, by labor union leaders and sweat shop owners, by socialists, social workers, social scientists, and socialites — by all varieties of politicians, practicing all brands of politics, in all political systems.
Over the last eighty years, every government in the world eventually adopted drug prohibition. National drug prohibition was one of the most widely accepted, reputable, legitimate government policies of the entire 20th century. Why? Why should this be so?
Drug prohibition is useful to all types of governments
There is no doubt that governments throughout the world have accepted drug prohibition because of enormous pressure from the United States government and a few powerful allies. But U.S. power alone cannot explain the global acceptance of drug prohibition. Governments of all types, all over the world, have also found drug prohibition useful for their own purposes.
