> But you can't see how proactively spending all of this money helping people instead of marginalizing/imprisoning people
Oh, we can spend an unlimited amount of helping people and it only lasts until they get out and get their next fix. How do you help people that don't really want help? And all of the "help" they want just goes to enabling the destructive behavior, the money we throw at the problem right now just allow them to do more drugs.
> instead of marginalizing/imprisoning people might be a viable solution?
So? The other approach is just enabling their behavior with compassion: let's make sure they have housing and open shelters so they can don't die while continuing to do their drugs? We are already spending untold billions on that, meanwhile ignoring petty property crimes (because junkies need legos for what?), and we only go OMG when they bash some poor girl's head in with a baseball bat because they are having a crisis.
Why have any sympathy for those people at all? So we are already spending around $60k/year/person on these people, how much higher do you want our one city to go? $200k/year? $1 million/year? How do you help people who don't really want help but will gladly take your money? Supply of those needing help (even if they just want drugs) is also basically unlimited since it is more of a national problem, while big cities are expected to provide compassion on their own.