Grass and Meth are the only two of the Big Four that can actually be manufactured here, if you include being grown as "manufactured". Climate and open environment isn't good for opium or coca on a large enough scale to make it a worthwhile risk.
The real "problem children" are Meth and Cocaine. Meth doesn't require the import of anything from abroad to manufacture, but the tightening of controls on basic ingredients in the US has begun an increase in meth smuggling across our borders, using the same systems developed over years by the cocaine and marijuana smugglers.

Al this is really moot, the subject is whether it's okay to go after each and every small plane coming in at treetop level, or every little hidden stash in spare tires of vehicles crossing borders, or the tunnels going under the borders, etc. I think it is, and we need to be especially ruthless, if for no other reason than to show how serious we really are. These people aren't so stupid they don't know it's illegal, they should understand that the risks and penalties can be fatal in a sudden and ugly way. There WILL be collateral damage as you mention, with innocents paying the price. What the news likes to pounce on, though, is the instances of our mistakes, taking out someone who wasn't actually doing something wrong and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What the news doesn't show, or tends to minimize, is the much greater toll of innocents both here and abroad from the smugglers themselves in the pursuit of getting their product to market any way they can.

Personally, I have doubts that we can contain the problem regardless of what we do. We are sticking our fingers in widespread holes in the dike, and we don't have nearly enough fingers, but we need to do what we can. To give up, say the heck with it, is to admit defeat.

I have dealt with some of these people (drug sellers, smugglers, etc) who have seen the inside of our penal system. By and large, they have no moral conscience, which , to me, puts them several rungs below those who doon the "human ladder".

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox. Everyone is going to feel a little (or a lot) differently on this subject. I think it was a righteous shoot.