Three years ago I would have agreed with you that it is not the responsibility of society to help addicts. Having a brother who has struggled with heroin addict

Three years ago I would have agreed with you that it is not the responsibility of society to help addicts. Having a brother who has struggled with heroin addiction has changed my views, however. He's been clinically dead twice, before being brought back to life by paramedics, and has woken up next to a dead body after a night of abusing the drug. Addiction is often a consequence of underlying mental problems which need to be addressed before addiction can be overcome. It's not even necessarily a matter of increased taxes to pay for addiction treatment, but rather a restructuring of the way the money is used. Take Portugal as an example. They decided to treat drug abuse as a public health issue, decriminalizing all drugs and redirecting the money formerly used to enforce drug law to helping addicts. Their drug use has declined. According to a Harvard Medical School study, nearly 35% of Medicare patients were prescribed an opioid from more than one doctor at the time of the study, and 1/3 of this group got opioid prescriptions from four or more doctors. Is this not creating obligations for the rest of us? You would think that you pay the costs of law enforcement to enforce drug law, but many police forces are underfunded and rely on profits from seized drug money and speeding tickets to fund themselves.