Of course it is a waste but it allows the FBI to make claims about how they busted a "kingpin". The war on drugs was never about actually stopping the flow of drugs. It just gives a justification to keep funds flowing into FBI/DEA etc type agencies. If you really wanted to stop the flow of drugs then we need a war on addiction. When you compare how much we spend on interdiction type enforcement versus drug treatment, it is obvious that the United Stats was never interested in actually helping people.
I think the state of addiction is often times a symptom of a larger problem - similar to the symptom of terrorism - what social and geopolitical factors have driven young men in the Middle East into the embrace of radicals? Likewise, what factors, events, and socioeconomic circumstances have driven people into the throes of addiction?
I think often, when fighting or attempting to mitigate a symptom, you may decrease said symptom in the short-term but in the long-term, precious little is being done to solve the problem (e.g. War on Poverty, War on Drugs, War on Terrorism, etc.).
