A better option to treating the opioid crisis is to help those in need now … rather than waiting to see how their suffering will affect them and society as a whole.
The costs are always the same … either be a conservative and villainize these people and let them become a burden on society and costs go towards police, security, emergency health care, judicial and negative social effects from their destroyed lives
… or …
Be more socially minded and spend the funds on helping these people now and prevent them from spiralling out of control and negatively affecting their lives further or the lives of others.
Best example I’ve ever read or seen first hand is in what they did in Portugal.
Every other example in North America is basically the same … they did half measures, expected results in weeks or months and never bothered to see what would happen in years or even lifetimes. Everyone always wants quick answers … but no one ever wants to admit that social problems like this will take decades and lifetimes of support, work and assistance to see positive results.
There is no quick fix … if there was, we would have used it and been successful by now.
El Salvador fixed it’s violence problem in 1 year, their methods are just not something Canadians could stomach as a solution I think.