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.
Ironically though, almost every time the humanitarian approach is more economical.
It’s more expensive to police people than to help them. It’s more expensive to clean up around a homeless camp and deal with all the fallout than it is to house them. It’s more expensive to handle the repercussions of ignoring everyone’s health than to treat them.
Most of the time, when you cut to the quick of why people don’t want to fund something like OAT, you tend to get a response that basically boils down to wanting bad behaviour to be punished.
Exactly, I WISH the government would view these issues from an economic perspective, because that would mean actually helping these people and integrating them back into society
You forgot the most obvious that homeless drug addicted people are not employed and paying taxes. It’s a double whammy.