I'm not convinced this is true, there's lots of ways to make a big profit illegally, drugs are just comparatively easy. I'm a proponent of full drug legalization (it's a space where I have large amounts of first hand experience that won't be discussed on HN), but it's still important to separate an ideological position from reality. The international drug trade is directly tied to human trafficking. Turning a blind eye to one is turning a blind eye to both.