> It might be true they don't work but do we really want the likes of Big Heroin, Big Cocaine and Big Marijuana like we have Big Tobacco?
That would certainly be better than what we have now. Big Tobacco does not kill people in turf wars over who gets to sell where, so I think Big Heroin would be an improvement over cartels and gangs. Maybe it is not the perfect solution, but Big Cocaine is likely going to be better than warring black market factions.
An issue with the government running it or taxing it like crazy is that behavior can still support a black market due to artificially high prices. There's a black market for cigarettes in NYC[0], driven by the high taxes. The government running things is not a silver bullet.
[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/cigarette-smuggling...