Drug War Kabuki Theater

“In the real world, the private drug cartels derive their power from the existence of a lucrative black market which the state plays a central role in maintaining. And the state itself is just another drug cartel which profits from controlling — rather than eliminating — the drug trade. You can be sure that, if anyone presented a plausible threat of actually ending the production of all illegal narcotics, the black ops people in the national security state would “neutralize” them, and that right quickly."