An interesting part of the article:
"state-funded nongovernmental organizations that have largely taken over responding to the people with addiction seem less concerned with treatment than affirming that lifetime drug use should be seen as a human right."
It's almost like if NGOs that live off the existence of drug abuse didn't want to kill the cash cow. That's another case of why such public services shouldn't be externalized.
The simple fact that neither them nor the police have enough funds/manpower/skills to directly rehabilitate addicts means that they do the bare minimum depending on what they see is their role.
When using is a crime then police does it job by picking up addicts and incarcerating them. (Which might be seen as an extreme form of stochastic harm reduction, with overall very harmful externalities.) When it's not, then these needle exchanges do probabilistic prevention of specific deadly circumstances.
> "state-funded nongovernmental organizations that have largely taken over responding to the people with addiction seem less concerned with treatment than affirming that lifetime drug use should be seen as a human right."
I don't understand why this is a problem. That is very sensible and a reasonable place to put most of your efforts.
It's almost like if NGOs that live off the existence of drug abuse didn't want to kill the cash cow. That's another case of why such public services shouldn't be externalized.