This piece is the best succinct description and analysis of drug trafficking that I have ever seen-- especially about who really benefits.
The reality is that drugs are a massive banking business. And it is also a fact that the bulk of that business is done in the industrial nations in their banks, NOT in the drug producing nations. The Drugs business is mostly a western business. A banking busness. Not unlike global mining where the mines are in the third world but the mining companies are listed and work in London.