Reply #10: No, far from it

[muriel_volestrangler]

He's saying the expenditure on "capture and imprisonment" is what was vast and useless, and he's happy the money will go to treatment instead. Also in the piece we have:

"Prepare to shed a tear over the loss of revenue that eventual decriminalisation of narcotics could bring to the traffickers, large and small, and to the contractors who have been making good money building and running the new prisons that help to bankrupt governments – in the US in particular, where drug offenders – principally small retailers and seldom the rich and important wholesalers – have helped to push the prison population to 1,600,000; their imprisonment is already straining federal and state budgets. "

"For the lives and sanity of millions, the seeing of the light is decidedly late. The conditions of the 1920s, when the US Congress outlawed alcohol and allowed Al Capone and his kin to make massive fortunes, have been re-created up and down Latin America."

The last paragraph of the whole piece reads:

"This year should be the year that common sense vanquishes the mailed fist in an unwinnable war against an invisible enemy."