" The cost savings weren’t what did the trick, though. Treatment has always been more effective and cheaper than prison for true drug addicts. What’s changed, Norman said, is that no longer are most of the accused African American inner-city crack users and dealers. Most of the new Tennessee junkies come from the white middle and upper-middle classes, and from the state’s white rural heartland—people who vote for, donate to, live near, do business with, or are related to the majority of Tennessee legislators. "

― Sam Quinones , Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic