It's about the business model of the drug war whereas so many police, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, drug treatment personnel, etc. rely upon this intake for their family's subsistence under the guise of public protection which has not delivered for a half century now. It's not so dissimilar from predatory lending under the guise of fair housing that collapsed our economy in just over a decade. These schemes are pretty complex although it's easy to follow the money, but in both cases no one will ever be held accountable. In the end it's the far too common government corruption scheme of regulatory capture playing out at a cost to everyone of us.
Regulatory capture is a form of
political corruption that occurs when a
regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of
interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of
government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (e.g., producing
negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
