Your comment seems to imply that the police are responsible for causing the Mexican drug war, but I believe that if the Arizona police were to resign en masse and move to other states, it would probably make the situation worse, not better; the drug cartels would expand to fill the power vacuum, and they are less accountable than the police.
Honestly, having the mexican drug violence spill over into the border states is probably the best thing that could ever happen to this country.
I understand your point, but would tend to disagree until AZ gets a new governor. I vainly hope that the international drug war is ended in the next decade.
The insane margins are not due to the fact that drugs are expensive to make, but that the product is illegal.
Prohibitions should taught us something. What we have now is Al Capone, but on a global scale.
Speaking of adding energy to systems -- drug laws put energy... er money... into the illegal drug system. Clearly, simply making everything available from your supermarket impulse buying rack is going too far, but simply regulating drugs the way cigarettes and alcohol (including taxing them) seems like a happy medium. I know that folks smuggle cigarettes into New York to avoid taxes, but the prison system isn't overrun with them and they aren't overthrowing central-american governments.