LOL. It's the tyrannical Drug War, and its associated black markets, which drive the street cost of these government controlled substances into the stratosphere.
In a free and open market, the cost of these things would be negligible, which would virtually eliminate the crimes which you bemoan.
Contraband law is Tyrannical law, and it will always produce magnitudes more misery (and less freedom, of course) than the problems it attempts to solve, just as alcohol Prohibition did.
A blind man could see it with a cane...
The late GREAT Dr. Milton Friedman would applaud your words. Some day the idiotic war on drugs will end. A few years after that, people would be amazed how much the violence will be diminished.
The government loves the War on Drugs, not because it helps protect the innocent; but precisely because it greatly increases the power of government at ALL levels.
This is the government expanding its nanny state, its amazing to see how mane communists who support big government are on free republic
War on this , epidemic that,Keep government out of medicine and stop bloating the government !