The difference is that addicts are actively malicious to their family members and broader society.

Depressed people and diabetics are hurting themselves either through action or inaction, but I've never been threatened by a diabetic or depressive outside a Circle K. I have been threatened by a criddler outside a Circle K. Similarly, few people get all of their stuff stolen out of their house by a diabetic or depressive. They do all the time when their son is addicted to heroin. Depressives don't prostitute their kids to drug dealers for crack, etc.

Drug addiction is one of the few diseases where the patient actively attacks all of the people who are in a position to help him. That generally alienates people who tend to be otherwise generous toward the down-and-out. The laws reflect that, and it takes a superhuman effort of rationality to say, "Yes, addicts do terrible things. Other solutions produce better results than the natural impulse of doing terrible things back to them."

Edit: We see this in the nastier forms of mental illness, too. People are generally compassionate toward those with OCD, eating disorders, and so on. Those with borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder tend to be relegated to "batshit insane" and viewed with utter contempt. Again, the difference is that someone with anorexia nervosa isn't going to pull a Carrie Underwood[1] on your car, but someone with BPD might.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8

> I've never been threatened by a diabetic or depressive outside a Circle K

Mentally ill people can be dangerous to the surrounding people, especially if not treated properly. This is known, and it is also known that the way to deal with it is to address the disease, not hurt them and yell at them "snap out of it, you bastard!"

> The laws reflect that, and it takes a superhuman effort of rationality to say, "Yes, addicts do terrible things. Other solutions produce better results than the natural impulse of doing terrible things back to them."

Calling this "superhuman" only reveals how low the expectations of "human" are. It is truly sad state of affairs that acting rationally and trying to do something that actually might make dent into a solving the problem instead of instinctively biting back is something that is considered "superhuman". If going a tiny step above animal is "super-human", what is left for "human"?

> Depressed people and diabetics are hurting themselves either through action or inaction, but I've never been threatened by a diabetic or depressive outside a Circle K.

Well, make the treatment for diabetes unavailable through legal means and very very expensive - and you soon will be.

Not sure why you think depression is not a severe mental illness. If your parents are depressed, this has very much the potential to affect you as a child. For one, since you got the same genes and the same risks involved and two, since you grow up in an environment where your two examples (mom and dad) are depressed with all the effects attached to that. Its difficult to give examples, but say you never see your parents smile or do anything with a smile. Don't you consider that actively malicious to their family members and broader society? Whereas a random heroin addict who sleeps under bridge and doesn't steal is just out of sight, out of mind. And what's to say the person isn't a heroin addict precisely because of mental illnesses?

Yes, that does seem odd doesn't it? I think the problem in the US is the US WoD has a playbook with just 1 play in it: tough on drug crime. Coupled with the unwritten rule that politicians of the same party should never openly criticize their own publicly, that one play in the one playbook is very difficult to change. Couple that with the fact that both of the two political parties in the US use that same one play from their one playbook and you can understand why it's taken 46 years to not solve the problem.

Well technically everyone treats addiction as disease. It’s the possession buying and selling part that’s a crime. You’re free to be addicted to anything you want as long as you’re not buying keeping or selling prohibited substances.

That's like saying "you are free to require food and feel hungry, it's just actual eating that is a crime" and then calling people criminals when they still try to eat.

It isn't a crime; it is punished by the ruling warlords. And it isn't the buying/possession of narcotics which is forbidden. What they forbid is to buy narcotics which have been grown/made by the warlords enemies (free independent people)

This is an aggressively unproductive way to frame the situation.