Opinions - Big Pharma and the Drug War

[Heretic.Ape.]

This question was recently brought up in another thread but I'd like to open this thread to directly tackle it: What is the role of Big Pharma in the War on Drugs?
This has been on my mind today as I've been researching the funding for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. At first glance I would say that over half of their funding comes directly or indirectly from the pharmaceutical industry. For example around 40% of their funding comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has ties to Johnson + Johnson, 1.5 million dollars (the largest donation from an individual) came from James Burke, the chairman of Johnson +Johnson, and several other donations came from pharmaceutical companies. I have not yet looked into each organization and individual, only the largest contributors, so I can't say exactly how many or how much money this comes to.
Drug companies have been known to be quite tenacious about keeping their profits up (just look into their reaction to President Clinton talking about covering senior citizen's under medicare--the frenzy of pouring over 200 million dollars if I remember correctly in lobbying, campaign donations, etc to buy the policy). They have a considerable presence in Washington, one of the largest. The question naturally arises "why would they pour money into keeping certain drugs that have a large market to tap illegal rather than trying to sell them for a profit?"
Big Pharma is also notorious for suppressing the generic drug market (look into the company Gilead and their attempt to control AIDS medication for a nice nasty feel this). So obviously, as in most cases, it is the money we have to look at.
One thought that comes to mind is that it might be interesting to look into correlations between which drugs are outlawed and the timing of those drugs patent expirations. Also it might be interesting to look into correlations between how easy it is to make a particular drug for ones self and banning--for example magic mushrooms and cannabis would be hard to make a buck off of if they were legal.
Such availability of drugs makes these substances not only something that they cannot make money off of but also creates competition for the drug companies. If you can treat a bunch of problems with some weed you grow in your back yard you are not going to buy their expensive ass pills.
Further thoughts anyone?
h.a.