With choices come consequences...I know that drug addicts don't have a lot of money at their disposal. You weren't looking for treatment for addicts, you were looking for treatment for addicts at the expense of those who are not addicts...gumment paid. If I don't believe in subsidized treatment for drunks, why would I believe in subsidized treatment for crackheads?
What addicts do is either my business, or not...if it's not my business, it's not my problem. I have no interest in subsidizing a lifestyle I recognize as destructive. If an addict has the right to drink/smoke/shoot up/whatever, then they have the right to lay in the ditch until they feel better, or die.
You don't get it. You are already paying for it. You are paying for all of the people in jail for nonviolent drug offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences (taking the place of guys like John Couey and other Pedophiles).
You are already subsidizing the lifestyle of those involved in the drug trade, not the addicts but the dealers at the higher levels. You are paying through the nose in taxes to support the govt's efforts to enforce the black market monopoly on the narcotics trade.
You pay also, and most expensively by having your individual liberties chipped away, day by day, year by year.
Ask yourself this. Why do we not get tax credits or rebates when the police seize millions of drug dollars? Where does that money go? What do they do with the drugs they confiscate and where do they get the drugs to set up sting operations? When is the WOD supposed to end, what defines success, will our civil liberties be returned once the WOD is successful? What other "Wars" is our govt. involved in that are evolving along the same lines?
There's no good answer. For me the cost outweighed the benefit on the WOD when asset forfeiture became commonplace. I don't care how great the need or noble the cause...due process is a constitutional right.
The only possibly worse answer is offering free treatment and decriminalizing drug use. Everyone with the benefit of hindsight can see the cost of the Great Society programs, the "war on poverty." We finally pulled the plug because of the $$$ cost; not only were the programs much more expensive than predicted, they created an increasing demand for the services.
We haven't totally counted the human cost. We now have a whole generation of welfare recipients, for example, possibly second and third generation, who are for all intents and purposes incapable of functioning as adults. We have a generation of young men who will never be employable. This was done with the best of intentions, but with little or no foresight.
Politicians believe there's no law they can't amend, but they've had little success on the law of unintended consequences. These results were easily predictable, and were predicted by some. They were assaulted as being mean-spirited and judgmental. Sound familiar? It should.
There's no shortage of politicians whose ambition outpaces their understanding...and plenty of do-gooders whose good intentions outweigh their judgment.
This is a minefield of unintended consequences. If I could support any change it would be to decriminalize, along with a philosophy...you are free to make bad choices, but we will do our best to see that the consequences are borne by you alone.