The war on drugs is a joke. How many years and how many trillions of dollars have been spent to have no appreciable effect on the usage of drugs by adults? Why do we go after the small fish, the users and street dealers, while mostly ignoring the medium size fish, the traffickers and distributors, and pretty much aid the big fish, the producers? Why have the poppy crops hit new records in Afghanistan every single year we have been there?
Our war on drugs actually help the people making the most money. They've refined their product over the years so that less is needed to get the same effect, but their market is roughly the same as it has ever been. Without our low level interdiction efforts, the price of the drugs would collapse and a lot of drug inc. would simply go bankrupt.
If the war on drugs were about stopping usage, it has failed. If it were about stopping production, that's a total failure. What then is the war on drugs about? Well, we now have no-knock warrants which are an absurd violation of the constitution, an increasingly militarized police force with an us (the police) versus everybody else (criminals and citizens) to fight the drug war, and drug laws that make the sizure of private property to fund the government okay if the property was used for drugs, even if it was used without the owner's consent. The drug war is an attack on civil liberties, and has been almost since the beginning.
I don't like sharing a DUmmies view of putting a guy away for selling pot, but so what. The police busted this guy and some other guy was in operation the next day. It's the same as if you arrested every single street dealer in NYC today. They would all be replaced tomorrow. Read McMafia.