In the mob's infancy, bootlegging was the primary racket. Alcohol is "drugs", and it was illegal then, which made it an illegal drug, just like cocaine or heroin. Exchange booze with the drugs of modern day and you have your parallels between the mob and the cartels.
The parallel only goes as far as alcohol and drugs. Have we seen cartels here in the US become diversified like the Mafia did, ie not only being involved in narcotics but gambling, loansharking, extortion, fraud, labor racketeering, infiltration of legitimate businesses, etc?
The answer is no.
In Mexico itself we have seen the Zetas and some smaller cartels diversify into other things like kidnapping, extortion, immigrant smuggling, etc. But Chapo reportedly kept his Sinaloa group for doing this, choosing to focus on drug trafficking alone. Easier to do when you have the biggest slice of the pie.
