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.
It’s always better to prevent the problem both fiscally and responsibly. Modern Conservatives/Neoliberals don’t care about that though, they just want to hurt people and then pretend they’re doing something. Creating issues like this helps keep people distracted from the reality that the wealthy have robbed workers for the last 40 years