There's certainly a conflict of interest here. Government agencies like the DEA benefit greatly from penalization of drugs. And governments hate closing agenci

There's certainly a conflict of interest here. Government agencies like the DEA benefit greatly from penalization of drugs. And governments hate closing agencies and firing people. Governments love a good fight, a costly one. And governments don't care about efficiency: it could be negative, they'd throw more of our money at it to get results. But I think we can't reject as a whole that "laws are made to protect the public". Some laws are stupid, when they try to protect you from yourself. Laws that protect you from others' enactments on you are mostly sane. Laws should be restricted to preventing prejudice I think. Without prohibition, drug dealers could still be prosecuted for not informing customers properly or, in extreme cases, for poisoning their clients. And that's good, because it would mean they'd have responsibility. They'd make their products better, safer... like every other business must do. Prohibition removes the responsibility argument in favor of a stupid "it's forbidden"... It's like a shortcut that doesn't take you where you wanted.