I made it through. I've never been to prison, and I survived...and those two victories put me well ahead of too many of my old friends.

Why am I now enjoying the sunshine when they do not? It's not that I was in any way better or stronger than most of them, but I had a family that cared, and I got lucky; and I wonder how much better our nation would be if the billions now spent on incarceration were diverted to treatment and rehabilitation?

At first glance it sounds ridiculous, but variations on this philosophy have been touted as a solution to our international drug problems for ages, and a number of countries have actually implemented programs to this effect with great results (the Netherlands and Canada).