For more info:
The CIA as Organized Crime by Douglas Valentine (not about the mexican cartels specifically but about how they utilized the very same blueprint down to a t in Operation Phoenix in Vietnam and exported that model pretty much everywhere the US had its hands in)
US: Funds cartels which increases the illegal drug trade in their own country
Also US: Hands out ridiculously heavy sentences for simple possession and use of drugs
Also US: Uses the private prison system to profit off prisoners by essentially selling them as slave labour
Also US: Actively makes the lives of ex cons hell with little prospect for reintegration into society which only makes them more likely to turn back to crime and end up right back in a private prison
Pretty genius if you ask me /s
To quote System of A Down - "They're tryin' to build a prison for you and me to live in"
Also US: Healthcare system is so shitty, poor people have to self medicate using illegal drugs.
Surely you don't mean the system requires a deserving underclass to do menial necessary work at exorbitant and exploitative profits and that pushing that underclass to foreign countries by shoring up (and then attacking) their criminal elements (with assassinations and bombings) to maximise their brutality and weaken the state by leaving the mess up to them to deal with.
Surely you jest, the good guys wouldn't do something like that right?