[blackbagboys]

The hope is that the "junkies" don't die. If that is all that's accomplished, that's still a success. There doesn't need to be more. Obviously there should be an option for users to enter treatment or receive some sort of assistance, but addicts should definitely not be forced into anything just to satisfy some petit bourgeois stern moral impulse, because that will ultimately drive people away and cost lives.

[AnabeeKnox]

"petit bourgeois stern moral impulse"

I don't know if you've ever met a working-class person, but I think you have things the opposite way round. It tends to be the middle-class petit-bourgeois who advocate a tolerant approach to the victims of drug abuse. Working-class people despise junkies because they are on the front-line of the associated crime, decay, danger, filth, child-neglect, disease etc.

[jimpick]

That junkie has a mother who has spent 20 years of her life trying to get him treatment for his schizophrenia but there is no government support, and he keeps disappearing from home and winding up downtown where he finds more comfort from The drug and sold by predatory drug dealers and other people like him who will not judge him constantly.

His mother works harder than any “working class person” I have ever met.

[meri_dian]

I'm not sure how you've constructed morality in your mind, but if you choose to belittle people who want to protect innocent people from the ravages of heroin addiction, which is a lifelong sickness, then you are misguided.

The real measure of success is how few people become junkies in the first place.

[aninhumer]

>The real measure of success is how few people become junkies in the first place.

No, the real measure of success is how few peoples lives are ruined.

If a bunch of people end up addicted to heroin, but end up living fulfilling and productive lives regardless, that's a fairly good outcome. If implementing measures to reduce the number of addicts leads to the remaining ones living in poverty and overdosing, then that's not an improvement.

[meri_dian]

"but end up living fulfilling and productive lives regardles"

That doesn't happen though. Not because of existing drug policy, but because of the all consuming nature of addiction.