Are we winning the war against robbers? No. People still rob. So should we remove laws against robbing? Might as well. They are immoral and they don't work anyway. Libertarians are simply unaware of the responsibilities of a "free" society. They try to force anarchy down our throats by claiming that it's only way to really have freedom. No way. Freedom requires responsibility, there's no other way to have freedom.
Take a lesson from Prohibition...legalize alcohol, but monitor its abuse, ie, DUI's, under age drinking, etc.
If someone is robbed, the victim wants police to go after the robber. If some people are sharing a joint but are not creating a disturbance, who is damaged by the activity so as to justify a complaint?
The term "victimless crime" does not imply that an activity is harmless, but rather with the fact that none of the participants are inclined to complain about it. Although it is good for the state to protect would-be complainants against intimidation, or sometimes for the state to intervene on behalf of those who are unable to file a complaint (e.g. murder victims), there is generally little basis for punishing people except when their specific actions subject others to involuntary harm (bodily, economic, or otherwise) or danger.
If people next door to me run a crack house, and such action interferes with my enjoyment of my property, I have a basis for complaint (since their actions cause me economic harm). But if the people smoke dope discretely in such a way that I wouldn't even know about it, I have no basis for demanding that the government ensure that they're not doing so.
Robbery, rape, murder, terrorism, fraud, arson, kidnapping, sexual abuse of minors...these things HAVE to be illegal in order to preserve the Social Order, in order to preserve civilization. If outright murder is legal (and I'm going to avoid the abortion sidetrack right now), if it was legal for you to get up, break into your neighbor's house, and slit his throat...well, things such as neighbors and houses wouldn't exist, because the anarchy would prevent people from living civilly. If your neighbor could kill you without recompense, and he knew he could, then you wouldn't leave your house for suspicion that your neighbor might harm you or your family. We need the belief that those who would harm us and our property are either A) already weaned out of the population or B) at least deterred by the threat of imprisonment if they tried such a thing. Heck, you wouldn't have a house, because without an arbitrary force out there separating murderers and arsonists from society, each individual has to be his own law enforcement officer, protecting his family and property and life 24/7--there would be no specialization of labor, thus no economy worth preserving, thus no civilization of any value. No lumber yards, no electricians, no oven manufacturers, no architects, no carpenters, no highway builders, no internets, no economy, just chaos and a hellhole, not unlike most of Africa, Latin America, and Arabia, with corrupt or nonexistent Rule of Law.
And there's the keyword, Rule of Law, a set of boundaries that all are accountable to, and that all citizens know all other citizens are held accountable to. A set of regulations defined by restraining those behaviors that disrupt the civil process, and thus allows people to live confidentally that most of the defrauders aren't in the business world (thus the need for contract law), that child molesters are in prison, that arsonists are deterred from burning down your house. These things aren't illegal because they are wrong or evil or sinful--they have those qualities and its a convenient overlap, but those qualities aren't what make those behaviors illegal or we'd have alot more laws and alot more criminals cause there are lots of evil and sinful things that are legal right now--those specific behaviors are illegal because civilization is contingent upon their illegality. So it isn't a matter of "winning the war" on robbery, or rape, or murder, or terror. These things HAVE to be illegal, in every society or there is no society. It's comparing apples to hippopotamuses.
If the War on Robbery is necessary, than the War on Drugs is voluntary--drug use is a different behavior that rape, at least in the context of having certain drugs (like booze) legal and others illegal. If someone shoots heroin, it has no more bearing on anyone else than if someone gets drunk or reads 'Catcher in the Rye'. That drunk person might sulk in his house, or he might drive and kill someone. That person might read Catcher in the Rye and go to bed, or he might get a gun and shoot a singer or a President. Its when the behavior carries over to someone else that it becomes a problem. If we can have a civil society where booze is legal, and only have certain boundaries for the behavior--don't drive drunk, for example--than those same boundaries can be put in place for pot smoking or snorting cocaine--don't drive while high.
Drug use, in and of itself, does not disturb the Rule of Law anymore than any number of other self destructive and stupid behaviors. If anything, it hampers the effectiveness of the Law by diverting needed tax payer money from chasing down terrorists to chasing down drug dealers. It makes the notion of Law look ineffective, and thus the Law is flauntable. Bad laws don't save society, they hasten the destruction of it, by turning the governing authority into a Paper Tiger, one that can't win its self declared "War on Poverty" or "War on Drugs". Its why it is so important that whatever law is on the books, either MUST be on the books so that we have civilization, or it must be enforcable. Drug use is wrong, but there are plenty of things that are wrong--stupidity, bad parenting, laziness, insufferable ignorance about economics, George Clooney. Illegality does not equal wrong, and Wrong doesn't equal illegality.
I honestly don't know what to do about drugs. Drugs and the death penalty, I can't give a strong answer either way. I don't pretend to have all the answers, nor do I think one needs to take a definite side on every idea and every position and every concept in the history of man. But when comparing the War on Murder, the War on Rape, and the War on Drugs, one doesn't fit, one isn't the same as the others.