Irrelevant. Tell me again the justification as to why my hard earned money should be taken form me at gunpoint and spent treating people who make a conscious decision to abuse drugs.
He's absolutely correct. You don't "catch" an addiction, you decide to become an addict when you start down the path of abusing drugs
So when it’s your loved family member who was given a legal prescription opioid for chronic pain and fell down a slippery slope, turn you back and let them die.
Sometimes you don’t catch an addiction, the addiction catches you. Broaden your view.
Your posting history indicates you typically think rationally, so I'll give you the cliff notes reason why: it's just business.
When you're placed in a position of management - either directly or virtually as an informed conservative involved in politics - you need to deal with facts on the ground.
One primary fact is that it's necessary to have an IQ of at least 95 to be able to function as a productive citizen in some form or capacity. Those below that threshold simply do not have the cognitive ability to either govern themselves or deal with any level of (economic ie self support) complexity.
So, what do they do? They turn to the classic vices: alcohol, drugs, promiscuous sex, gambling, etc. Dysfunctional behavior begins early - typically by age 13. Are there entities that prey on these kinds of people? Yes, that goes without saying. Are there organizations that promise to reform, redeem and/or train these people - to no avail of course. Again, yes.
Society is then faced with two choices: prohibition or maintenance. Note that there isn't a solution - it simply exists. In other words, money will be spent either on a criminal justice system in a futile attempt to prevent usage, or it will be spent on a blend of CJS and social programs to ameliorate the after effects.
Now place yourself in a management position: what choice(s) do you make given these fundamentals? Would it surprise you that it would look just like we have today, a blend of each? This is the role & responsibility of those who deal with facts, not wishes or dogmatic positions.
the big money with addicts is not the overdosing, but the infections they develop from repeated needle sticks...they don’t stick around in the hospital to get a few days of IV abx so ultimately, they develop worse infections that require 6 weeks of IV abx...and because most of them refuse to work or live normally, they have no place to go and we MUST keep they’re whinny little asses in the hospital for 6 weeks...