There are two and only two ways to stop the drug trade.
1. Make any and all drugs legal. No profits, no illegal drug trade, no associated violence.
2. Massively crack down on the users. Any black market problem can only be addressed by stopping the demand. Attempts to stop the supply only constrict it, drive up prices and profits, and provide massive incentives for new people to enter the business.
By necessity any attempts to enforce #2 would be hugely oppressive and unpopular. Probably could not be done while respecting present American civil rights. Something I’ve always found interesting is that an entire country stopped a massive drug trade in the 20th century, and nobody ever talks about it.
This was the ChiComs after their conquest of the country. A huge percentage of the population was heavily addicted to opium. The commies stopped this, using drastic methods that won’t fly in America, of course.
What greatly irritates me is the way some Americans denounce the excesses of the suppliers, many of whom are foreigners, when the cause of all this is, always has been and always will be those who provide the funding for the operation. The (mostly) American drug users.
Actually, I take that back. There is a third way, but not one Americans would go for.
Government takes all confiscated drugs, and possibly additional ones it produces, poisons them and releases them back into the market.
Users randomly die. Eventually all users will either be poisoned or decide using is too dangerous and will stop.
But this is just another, somewhat more drastic, method of attacking the root of the problem, which is consumption. Doing this will work, attacking distribution will never work.