Barrett battled another popular view: that if a public policy failed, it amounted to “government waste” to keep funding it. In speeches around the county, Barrett likened drug addiction to smoking; smokers knew cigarettes were killing them, yet they kept smoking despite the consequences and repeated attempts to quit. Most smokers, he reminded his listeners, needed numerous tries—and failures—to quit. Failure, he said, was no reason to stop trying, and learning how.
