Also, since they're not busy burglarizing homes to get money to buy drugs, they could also be employed for tasks like street cleaning.
The difference in the swiss city of Geneva at the central station in the late 80s and early 90s is hell and heaven. While it does not solve all problems the methadone heroin replacement system does solve the vast majority of negative issues. Petty crime and robbery dropped significantly, whores for drugs disappeared, needle reuse is non existent. And in the 80s I was warned with reason to look out for drug needles and not touch them. This is not a worry anymore, either in the Netherlands or Switzerland.
Both Amsterdam and Geneva suffer these days from organized street crime. But the risk of being attacked by a junky for your wallet is minimal. Organized street crime prefers to steal from you without you noticing and are quite skillful. Junkies needing money for a hit are more like dogs with rabies. The remaining junkies are rather fragile and slow, and not dangerous as long as they get their regular hit. Which they do in a safe and controlled environment.
Having been to San Fransisco and Amsterdam these are no longer comparable at all. 25 years ago I can believe but 15 years, no.
I think many people have issue accepting that drug addicts are part of society. Criminalize them, and the whole underworld evolves but it won't affect their numbers much. Put death sentence on drug use, and there will still be healthy population of addicts.
So with your 'drawing line' approach and misleaded comparison to sex trade, you just give ammo fodder for far right-wing populist politics, polarizing society and law enforcement, increasing crime and making it more organized, while achieving very little positive impact. Something like famous US screw-up called War on drugs.
In my city people are clamouring so hard to get a safe consumption site just this week a dispute over where to host it was dropped out of fear we wouldn't get a site up and running at all. The mayor and some councillors wanted to use an empty lot along a major street on the edge of downtown, but that would require building a facility and all necessary funding hadn't been secured. Everyone on the ground involved in fighting homelessness and addiction wanted another location which has been vacant for a while. It's not too far from city hall and in a much more walkable location, but that places in near some other community centres. This location could be up and running in just a few months from the word go. Community leaders organized to convinced the mayor (who to his credit changed his mind) that approving an unfunded site risked not having a safe consumption at all. Every single person opposed to the more central location does want a safe injection site and also agreed to drop their opposition to the central site. Long term the best location may be the empty lot, but everyone involved didn't let perfect be the enemy of good. I've never been prouder to live in this city
I'm open to legalization or anything that minimizes damage, but unfortunately most people don't seek help until they've hit some kind of bottom. It's a complicated issue, and just making it easier for them to use seems as simplistic as "just say no".
If you want to be an anarchist, that's your right. But you don't get to mischaracterize people that think we should have laws as 80s style drug warriors.
This is not even close to what I was suggesting. Talk about being dishonest.
Why would you complain about being mischaracterized, and then blatantly do the same?
Talk about an approach that hasn't worked so far.
It isn't reasonable to shoot up in a public bathroom even if a city doesn't provide supervised injection sites any more than it is reasonable to have sex in the street if a city doesn't provide free love hotels. At some point antisocial behavior is and ought to be considered criminal.