Unfortunately heroin is only becoming a news story here because children of wealthier families are dying; they even proposed laws to charge dealers with murder (that may have prevented or reduced the problems with urban drugs decades ago by sentencing those dealers much more harshly).
I look at the “war on drugs” as a segment of the “poverty industry”; it employs a lot of people, so nobody really wants to see it get better. Like teachers that make extra income teaching summer school - why would they want to see all students perform better during the regular school year?
Latin America pointed out years ago that we, not they, have the drug problem; our addicts have ravaged their countries.
I respectfully disagree with your premise. If one little city of 30,000 is sending out a fully staffed paramedic ambulance seven times a night on a weekend, and twice a night every weekday night at $500 (average) a whack, extrapolate that across a region, a state, or the entire country.
Add into that the cost of larceny, burglary, and theft. Add in the Emergency room costs.
I am not making an emotional argument at all. I am making an economic argument. The cost of the crap is going to add to the bankruptcy of our medical services.
Now, add in the gun violence. After suicide, I have to believe that most gun deaths are related to rugs.
ISIL is scary. But it is taking your attention away from a much larger problem.
We should be using those military assets to destroy the drug trade. We should make some ultimatatums to Mexico. We should kill the cartel leaders. We should stop doing business with Mexican banks.
The border crap is not about illegal aliens. Those people are a drop in the bucket when compared to the cost of dealing with the heroin trade in the US. Stopping it at the source will kill the root cause—cheap and readily available drugs.