Not sure I understand what you mean. Cooke meant allow all drugs to be legal, as NR and the rest of the libertarians want. That is probably what you want.
But he presented this as a compromise, to let the Republicans win, even though, sneakily, he may actually want it for its own sake. Same with gay marriage.
Conservatives are not fooled that easily, and they are not so easily compromised.
Like this nation "threw the alcohol war under the bus"?
Not sure I understand what you mean.
I mean that the War on Drugs has all the practical and philosophical failings of the War on Alcohol aka Prohibition.
he presented this as a compromise, to let the Republicans win, even though, sneakily, he may actually want it for its own sake.
Very sneaky of him to devote only an entire chapter of his book (which one can read at https://books.google.com/books?id=mI1oBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT109&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4) to principled and policy reasons why the war on drugs should end (with only passing mention in that chapter of the political advantages).