Stop suckling on Mom and Dad's teat and your business is your own. Till then it is unfair to tell them they have responsibility but no rights. My folks can recommend what I do till they are blue in the face but I don't have to comply. The simple equation is the more you suck at the teat, the more control you have to cede.

You haven't answered the question. Since prison is more expensive than the "let them use and treat when needed" approach, are you suggesting a much cheaper approach of a 9mm round?

Or perhaps something like a database of hard-core addicts, by fingerprint, that would only be given palliative treatment upon hospital admission unless they demonstrate ability to pay. (Basically, they chose to be outside the law, so they're also outside of the scope of gov't help -- modern outlawry.)

I'm suggesting that govt gets out of the healthcare business so it has one excuse less to meddle in my business, for example. That way, if I can afford it, I can dose myself with PCP all day long. I pay for it when I can and if not, I suffer. As a billionaire, if I choose to do heroine all day long and I have organ failure, if I can pay for it, why not? If not, I die horribly or whatever. Every time you ask for govt "help", you open the door wider for them to get in and tell you what you have to do. Whether it cost more one way or the other is irrelevant.

Think about it this way. I am a 40 yo child of my parents. I can take care of myself without their curfew. However, regardless of anything else, in the name of taking better care of me and not having to mop up, Mom & Dad can insist on me coming home no later than midnight. Why? Because I am living in their house. Today, I can tell them to go hang themselves and even give them the rope to do it with. Why? Because I don't depend on them. Once I do, the water becomes more murky.

BTW, not fond of 9mm rounds. Too expensive. A rope is more versatile and is recyclable which should please the earth loving side of you. Everybody is happy.

My cost to reload 50 9mm rounds is 5 bucks. You can't buy much of a rope for 5 bucks.

Druggies usually end up in an in house program that continues after release. Sentencing guidelines won't have her penalized for having a public defender.

Apples and oranges.

1. Ammo is hard to get as are reloading supplies.

2. If you buy it like you do the rope,assuming you can get it, cost is much higher.

3. Rope can be used on many people

4. Rope is quieter

5. Rope, when it is no longer useful for hanging can be made into "soap on a rope for new fish at a prison.:D

No, that would be tongue in cheek smartassery. I see some merit in libertarian ideals but my take is that most devoted adherents are idealists and dreamers of the first order.