I dove into this topic to understand what went wrong to the best of my ability. From what I gather, countries with successful decriminalization also have government assistance for the addicted. That’s much different than the US’s “shoot up anywhere, any time.”
That being said, the point I was responding to is that, of the two extremes, total prohibition seems better than total decriminalization.
But either way, people underestimate how expensive addiction treatment is, and overestimate how effective it is. Prohibition of alcohol, or rather the teetotaller movement, came because they realized society had a problem it couldn't individualize and pay itself out of.
We still haven't, but for a good 80 years we've had enough money to hide the problem.
“Without this place I would be dead. Simply, the MSIC saves lives.” Uniting MSIC client https://www.uniting.org/community-impact/uniting-medically-s...
“We also have strong evidence to say that SIFs not only save the lives of people who inject drugs, but also improve their lives,” George Dertadian, a senior lecturer of criminology at the UNSW https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-12/safe-injecting-facili...