I'd say the drug war has functioned admirably.  It has increased organized crime and burglary/robbery rates, as well as murder rates.   

It has made people nationwide fearful and clamoring for more government protection.

It has tossed millions in prison to supply slave labor for the prison industrial complex.

It has justified trampling on our civil Rights to make sure we Negros stay on the plantation.

It has robbed the workers of their earnings and transfered them into the pockets of hundreds of thousands of government workers and their parasitic government tit sucking businessmen sycophants annually.

 I am absolute agreement with you. That was the basics of my comment, too, that I believe it has accomplished exactly what it was intended to do. The amount of money involved is just breathtaking, particularly when you add in the parasitical industries that share in the cash flow -- the mandated drug counseling, the mandated drug testing, the mandated drug rehab, etc. and so on. The towns that used to be manufacturing towns have now become prison towns, since industry has left in favor of lower labor costs. And think of the open theft of asset forfeitures. No criminal charge necessary and many just walk away from their wrongfully seized assets because they cannot afford a lawyer to get them back. It is a disgrace that the average person has only the rights he can afford to defend.

Like with Vietnam, the U.S. can't hope to win any war where the enemy can hop and hide across borders and buy off the govt., especially a 2K-mi. border that is unsealable even against laborers. However, if the U.S. really wants to win the Mexican drug war it has the ability, by working to dissolve the incurably corrupt Mexican govt. that is a virtual criminal enterprise and incorporating Mexico into the U.S. as several new states, pushing the drug cartels into Belize and Honduras, where the far smaller border will bottle them up nicely for a long time. Learn about the Megamerge Dissolution Solution at http://go.to/megamerge