Dear loro68, You are right .
Drugwars is a play for whales or rich guys!
If you want to have 693k alcohols,
You can to manage these items !

To upgrade headquarters and increase storage , it maybe need to wait almost 2 week, like as you say that....
If you want upgrade fast, you can paying steem tokens to add upgrade speed...
Other than that,
You also have to have enough resources.
I have some friends, he has a lot of STEEM accounts,
He and I said: His each account are join drugwars , and can receive 0.001 STEEM bounty every day...
And he goes to grab the resources of the trumpet every some days.....
He said that STEEM accounts can be purchased at https://blocktrades.us ,
Each account costing about 6 STEEM.
These methods are all need to paying some steem tokens,
So , like as you say that,
Drugwars is a play for whales or rich guys!