Maybe pathological addicts are also productive in some ways that we don’t appreciate? In any case: saying that addicts are “non-productive” does not imply that stay at home moms, poor artists, or retirees are unproductive (etc. etc.).
Noble savages?
Loosely, addiction can be useful-- the thrill seekers among us are our pioneers. Everest wasn't Hillary's first climb, it was his tallest.
Think about the implications of that though. Pioneers die...a lot. As a group the addict class are probably meant to be sacrificial.
Pathological addiction subverts that. It's a problem in that they risk their lives for no real benefit to anyone.
This seems like a strange conception of addiction, unless we aren't seriously comparing mountain climbing with heroin. If we are then I wonder what utility the classification of addiction is actually supposed to provide to us.