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"In most cases there are more serious crimes that are plea-bargained in order to gain evidence against suppliers, or reduce the court load.

For example, a person may commit a domestic assault while high on drugs but the victim refuses to press charges. The city attorney agrees to a plea bargain on the drug charges to avoid a court battle which may go either way due to the lack of a key witness. It saves the state/city money and gives the person the opportunity to get clean."

I'm a public defender who handles literally hundreds of felony and misdemeanor cases every year. Maybe things are just different where I live, but it is not true here that in most drug cases there are more serious charges that are plea bargained away. In fact, that rarely happens here. Often, if we try to talk the prosecutor into getting rid of a charge it will be the drug charge because those come with a drivers license suspension that would be a real hardship on some people. We'll try to get that one dropped or amended to something like "possession of an instrument of crime" to avoid the drivers license suspension. Usually though, charges are never dropped. Almost all cases end up being resolved by plea bargain, but that certainly doesn't mean charges will be dropped. That just means the defendant will be convicted without going to trial. We try to get him a better deal, but that generally just means less punishment than a judge or jury might give him. We're trying to get a "plea discount," working out something that will entail less punishment than the defendant would likely get if he loses at trial. He still might very well be getting prison or jail time, but if we have done our job right he'll get less time than he would have had we have gone to trial.

Most all drug charges where I live are felony offenses. The only ones that are misdemeanors are first offense marijuana possession and first offense possession of certain prescription drugs that are less controlled than the harder pharmaceutical drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and the like. Misdemeanor possession is in the highest possible classification of misdemeanor crimes. There is no more serious misdemeanor. Simple possession of a drug like meth, cocaine, or even hydrocodone is in the middle range of felony classifications. A felony in a higher classification would be a very serious crime. Only capital murder is in a higher classification than delivery or possession with intent to deliver these types of drugs in my state. Selling or possessing with intent to sell even a tiny amount of these drugs could get someone a life without the possibility of parole sentence. Kidnapping, burglary, robbery, sexual abuse of a child, and so on are all lesser offenses. People in trouble for that are in almost every case going to prison and prosecutors rarely drop any other charges because they want them on the person's record in case he gets in trouble again. Then he'd be a habitual offender subject to much higher penalties and it would be much easier to get him to just shut up and plead the next time he gets arrested for something.

As for the domestic assault/drug possession scenario you talked about, things would go differently where I live. Quite likely the misdemeanor domestic assault would be a lesser crime than the misdemeanor drug possession charge. There are different degrees of that crime with the highest being in the same classification as misdemeanor drug possession. The city attorney would not drop the assault charge even if a key witness didn't show. Instead, she'd ask for a continuance and the judge would probably grant it. Before asking for the continuance, she'd tell the defendant's attorney what she was going to do and that she was going to make sure the witness showed next time even if she had to send the cops there to pick her up. She'd make an offer that might include jail time, but would definitely include a six month anger management class. She might agree to do something about the drug charge, either drop it or, more likely, work it out such that it stays off the person's record, but she'd be much more concerned with making sure the defendant did the anger management class than the "drug treatment." The drug class he'd have to go to if convicted would be some short worthless thing where he'd spend a Saturday afternoon listening to an incompetent government drug counselor talk and watch a bunch of scary videos. It's a waste of time and even the prosecutors know this.

Every once in a while I can get a case dropped because a witness doesn't show, but if I am certain I can get the thing dropped or beat it at trial, what the heck would I want to plea bargain it for and why would I let a case the prosecutor and I both know she can't make have much of an effect on plea negotiations on the remaining charge? Sometimes these cases do get dropped if a key witness (almost always the victim) doesn't show, but not very often. Prosecutors and judges hate dismissing these cases because they worry that the victim is not showing because she is being threatened by the defendant or others tied to him. The judge will always continue the case at least once and the detectives will do their best to track the person down and scare them into coming to court threatening them with contempt charges and filing false police report charges. Generally the person will plead anyway if he or she is guilty even if the victim doesn't show because normally we can get a pretty decent deal when the victim isn't there, whereas if we wait till next time when they've dragged the victim in he might get the book thrown at him. The decent deal we might get is much more likely to be one that keeps the drug conviction from showing up and his license from being suspended rather than one that drops the violent offense. We might be able to get him a deal that will allow him to get the violent offense off his record eventually if he pays his fines and complies with the terms and conditions of his suspended sentence, but it's rare that we'll actually be able to get it dropped.