The function of the Drug War is to create the Drug Crisis. The Drug Crisis involves billions of dollars of hidden cash flow. Addicted to this flow of money are law enforcement agencies, drug producers and distributors, covert agencies who use it as a source of black funding, and politicians and bankers who are hired to protect the drug revenues. Addiction to drug revenues requires that the drug war be fought so as to be lost.
Failure thus becomes the criterion of success.
Such juicy targets consist of those who have created flourishing drug enterprises in the midst of the Drug War. These successful drug enterprises make up the necessary list of worthwhile targets leading to successful busts. Big drug busts involving heretofore lucrative drug businesses are announced in a blaze of publicity emphasizing the amount of money and drugs seized, and people arrested. Thus the failure of the Drug War becomes the measure of the Drug Warriors' success, and the ineffectiveness of the Drug Warriors becomes the continuing justification for their existence. The Drug Warriors are ever justified by the continuing Drug Crisis and the richness of the Drug Warriors' targets.