I think there's no solution to drug abuse, violence is just a temporary solution, even if the government was able to determine or catch some of the drug lords here in our country, this kind of business is well coordinated.
AMEN. I don't think we understand how hard it is to run a drug empire without government notice. You can't. Besides the foot traffic, the laundering of funds, the communications that can be recorded, I honestly don't think governments aren't aware of the drug merchants in their territories.
It takes one of your customers, one single time, to be caught and rat on you. People Rollin on their dealers may be more common than fish breathing water. There is little honor at the depths of addiction.
The government only goes after those that have enough assets to seize. The government doesn't really give a fuck about drugs. Drugs, or the arrests they provide, simply fill prisons that get paid to be full, and fine those who can least afford to pay.
Any serious government strategy to curb drug use should have a few key parts:
Education:
Because knowing the real dangers of a Substance is the best preventative.
Rehabilitation:
For those that slip through the cracks, incarcerate them WHILE rehabilitating them. That say you can ensure that the rehabilitation is good faith.
Prevention:
Let me be real. Certain drugs only come from certain places, some examples:
If you are an American and have had cocaine, it came from Mexico. Likewise, low quality marijuana. Inversely, your high quality pot was homegrown, or came from California or Colorado.If you have had real LSD in the last decade (you most likely didn't), it was produced by a Greatful Dead fan with a penchant for science if you had what you thought was LSD in the last 10 years, you most likely had a Chinese manufactured synthetic. Hash is Canadian. Opium is South American. Meth, well, that's Made in The USA™
I say all that to say this: punishing addicts is like cutting the tops off of a weed, but never pulling it up. As long as the sources remain intact, the weed will regrow, waiting to be chopped down again. If we don't go after the sources; for example, the Chinese labs where my Greatful friend gets his precursors to manufacture LSD, the shipping routes where coke comes across our southern border. The pharmacies that provide enough OTC cough medicine to convert to meth. The nurses that subvert opiods from institutions for Street sale. The pharmaceutical companies that aggressively market said opiods.
Addicts are low hanging fruit.