[futhey]

I don't know whether this is a brilliant solution or a dystopian nightmare.

You'd re-invent the 19th century opium den, but it's public housing with free Oxy just outside the city limits, where you can choose to forego any meaningful integration into society, and (I assume) cut your life a bit shorter and escape into an unending, but more socially-acceptable, opium high.

[anon9001]

It sounds bad when you say it like that, but also a huge upgrade over the current situation.

I think the idea would be to keep everyone safe and ideally give them pathways back to normal society, not create a permanent underclass.

If a significant percentage of the population wants to take advantage of such a program, that probably means society is doing something else wrong unrelated to drug or housing policy.