Kinda' going off track a bit here, but when I suggest legalizing drugs as a means of undermining cartels, it's certainly not meant as legalizing all crimes to eliminate crime. The War on Drugs has been going on for over 40 years that I've seen and been a complete and total failure. One might say, OK, you've had your turn, now let's try an alternative and see if it does better. It can't do any worse.
Take meth; it would most likely disappear from use and therefore manufacture. Why, you might reasonably ask. Because if common narcotic drugs were legal, you could buy a daily hit of pharmacutical grade heroin from the drugstore for $1. Yeah, a $100 a day habit would become a dollar a day habit, for those inclined, probably absorbing the vast majority of meth heads because they'd get a better recreational drug for even less money than their meth habit. (Note: I'm not recommending drug use, but simply acknowledge that a percent of our population will seek out and use drugs no matter what laws we have.)
Because these drugs are actually quite cheap to produce and sell if it were legally allowed, the huge profit potential that attracts and creates things like drug cartels would cease to exist. Since drug cartels do exist, they, along with the DEA, LE opposed to drugs, and conservatives who are hell bent on trying to control (and failing miserably) the social behaviors they don't approve of, lead the charge against legalizing drugs. The cartels and well-meaning, but wrong-headed, folks are in it together unfortunately. Cartels would of economic necessity move on to whatever the next highest profit business that is vulnerable to their business model, securities trading probably (t.i.c.).
Anyway, legalizing pot, meth, heroin, and other similar drugs all but eliminates the majority of the criminal activity associated with them. Murder, assault, robbery, even home burglaries would decline as the need to raise large amounts of money to purchase illegal drugs almost, but not quite, goes away.
One post asks if a drug user can be a functional member of society, hold a job, pay taxes, etc. Although it's not the norm, there have been numerous instances over the years of functional heroin addicts. Generally it doesn't work out in the long term due as much to the high cost of heroin and varying and inconsistent quality of street heroin as to the effects of the drug on some users. As for the societal outcome, look to the Netherlands. Although certain streets of Amsterdam are replete with junkies, the overall rate of heroin use has declined since they stopped prosecuting drug use. There's a logical explanation for that too, but that involves going even further off topic.
Sg