Rayburn Traffic

The war on drugs is not winnable at any level, because as long as there is resistance to drug use, people will want to do drugs and find ways to use drugs. There are massive hurdles to climb in ever winning a war on drugs, and these hurdles seem to be nearly impossible, particularly with the current amount of funding for the war vs. the demand for drugs in the United States.

One scene that greatly illustrates the futility of a war on drugs on a political level is when one of Wakefield's advisors says that the amount of monetary resources the Mexican cartels have so far surpasses US funding that overpowering cartels is virtually impossible.

Another scene is near the end of the movie, when the DEA Agent tries to put a bug underneath Ayala's table to catch him selling drugs and make him easier to prosecute. This small victory is still not really a victory, because immediately afterwards Ayala and his wife go outside to talk, suspecting that he would have bugged the room. Drug dealers are too good at evading the tactics that could be used by the government to prosecute them, because they are predictable and very limited. As long as these are the most readily available ways to catch drug dealers, the war on drugs really has no chance on a social level.

On an individual level the war on drugs cannot be won until every person is drug-free, which is also virtually impossible. One of the main messages of the movie is that everyone in some way is touched by drugs, and so it seems to imply that on an individual basis, the war cannot be won. Mothers, politicians, daughters and sons, husbands, wives, everyone deals with drugs sometime in their life.