Until people realise that this is a rational and sensical decision there won't be any solutions for these problems and these cases.

The US drug "treatment" / "rehab" industry is notoriously awful and is dominated by pseudo-religious ideologues obsessed with abstinence (to the point that "cult" is often an accurate, non-hyperbolic term) and whose practices are not based on any medical evidence of what reduces deaths. It's a fucked up industry that loves to use degradation, isolation, and humiliation on its "patients", loves to make people withdraw suddenly from their drug use and force them to endure the withdrawal symptoms, and isn't even particularly good at helping people not die from heroin/opioid use.

Given the current state of the rehab industry, and given how ineffective the "treatments" it offers are, it can alas be a rational decision to avoid it.

here's some reading that is relevant: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr... http://theinfluence.org/the-rehab-industry-badly-needs-to-cl... http://www.salon.com/2012/08/28/do_12_step_programs_lead_to_... http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-t...

Unless the US adopts some sort of ASBO laws, there's not much you can do about forced treatment for someone who doesn't choose treatment.

Also, you could substitute heroin here with any other equally damaging substance like alcohol and the situation wouldn't change.

I encourage everyone to read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour_order which has a list of things the government was allowed to punish you for, including "rudeness" and "xenophobia". The most recent ASBO legislation is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour,_Crime... which I am not familiar with.

Keep that ASBO trash on the other side of the pond.

I prefer my government to absorb the cost of human despair rather than bill for it. Don't write policy based on outliers.

You are very good at using language. The reality is that government doesn't 'absorb' anything. Other people, some of whom can't afford to, pay for it.

No taxes, no currency, no economy to speak of (see: anywhere without a functioning government).

I don't get how some on the internet live and breathe in a government-sponsored property and currency regime and rail against the government part of it, but want to keep the property and currency.

Government turns around and spends those dollars in the economy. They are reallocated, not removed.

Desk jobs and fast food? As long as we have public healthcare I reserve the right to smack that bag of chips out of your chubby fingers. /end of rant

Then just systematically lock all addicts up and ship them off to freshly constructed prisons in Alaska.