"THE DRUG WAR" DEFINED
"The drug war" does NOT include education, prevention or treatment. It makes these important tools less effective.
The drug war is the modern term for "prohibition." This is a societal decision to replace persuasion with force.
It is the decision to try to protect citizens from themselves through a massive increase in the use of the police power of the state.
Like alcohol Prohibition, the drug war used only one basic tactic, the effort to stop supply.
Since that didn't work, the drug war added a second tactic that was not used during alcohol Prohibition, the threat of prison for simple possession in an attempt to reduce demand by deterring use.
(That doesn't work either. See: Drug War Failure)
That's it - there's nothing more.
Education, prevention and treatment existed before prohibition. They are the centerpiece of alternate policies. Force was an addition that drained resources from these more effective tactics; we were more successful without it.
By attempting to include education, prevention and treatment in the drug war, proponents are able to argue that the drug war is working if some gain from non-coercive tactics occurs. It is a buffer against criticism of the use of force.
Note: The drug war is also the choice to only prohibit some drugs, dividing drugs into legal and illegal based primarily on popularity, with little regard for the actual danger that individual drugs present and without recognition that as soon as a dangerous drug is prohibited, it immediately becomes much more dangerous.