Drugs should not be so expensive that people should have to steal to afford them. Their prices could be massively lowered if they were legal, since the cost to produce them is almost negligible.

People with severe mental health issues have trouble holding down jobs, so I'd be very surprised if the people the original article talks about who are running around screaming at invisible demons could manage to work installing roofing or doing anything else.

These people need help, not prisons.

If you're too far gone to get a day gig you're usually also too far gone to have the industriousness required to cause real problems for society. If you're screaming at demons on the sidewalk you also aren't breaking into stuff. The people who have made a regular income stream out of victimizing people are higher functioning than that. They're just regular old tweakers picking the best option available to them. The former needs mental health care. The latter needs their best option to be something that doesn't victimize other people (whether you use a carrot or stick to achieve that matters not).