I agree. Opiate addicts can often hold a job and live fairly normal lives if they have affordable access to drugs and if the drugs are what they're claimed to be. So much money and so many lives are wasted on the war on drugs.

Putting people in jail because they fell into addiction is a bad move. It costs a ton of money and all but ensures those people will be unemployable when they eventually get out of prison which just leads to even more problems.

If someone is engaging in hard drug use, the only compassionate and fiscally sane approach is to do whatever can be done to get them off drugs. Throwing them in jail when the only thing they've done wrong is become addicted to something—often as a result of depression or another mental health problem—is cruel and pointless. If they're a danger to other people, sure, you need to use force, but this is often not the case.