A hard problem with nothing but bad options. Feels like our choices are either to reduce incarceration, which is cheaper and less harsh on drug users, but does

A hard problem with nothing but bad options. Feels like our choices are either to reduce incarceration, which is cheaper and less harsh on drug users, but does nothing to reduce drug use in a given community, or to continue to arrest drug users, which removes them from the community, but is expensive and morally questionable. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The real solution probably takes decades to see results and requires changes in multiple different places to generally reduce the likelihood that a society produces drug users in the first place, which given the current cultural and political environment feels impossible.