After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives.After 40 years of defeat and failure, America"s "war on drugs" is being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal. US agents are being pulled from South America; Washington is putting its narcotics policy under review, and a newly confident region is no longer prepared to swallow its fatal Prohibition error.