I think that can't compare alcool with drugs, a drunken person is the opposte of a junkie.
I think he means that Colosimo viewed alcohol the same way that mobsters viewed drugs in the modern age. It is highly profitable but not worth the trouble (violence and LE attention). Colosimo wasn't the only boss that felt this way about bootlegging and I seriously doubt he was the only one that got killed because of it.
"I die outside; I die in jail. It don't matter to me," -John Franzese
