The cost of medical grade heroin is a tiny fraction of the costs to society of the crimes to support illegal heroin.
So if the issue is money, then the case is even more strongly in favour of legalisation.
We don't even need to give it away for free - just giving addicts the opportunity of buying medical grade heroin at cost would massively improve things.
Even better: Heroin addicts can generally function relatively well when they don't have to chase their next high constantly. Giving them a secure supply would let many of them hold down jobs and pay taxes and cover their own costs.
The economics are all in favour of shutting down the "war on drugs" for all but the very worst drugs. Incidentally, though, most of the truly nasty drugs are not drugs people tend to want, but synthetics introduced to circumvent drug laws. Most of them will largely have demand evaporate overnight if people could legally get safer alternatives.
Whenever this comes up it's important to realize how much addicts are already costing us. It's hard to know exactly how much because the costs are born by already existing systems - home insurance to cover burglaries, auto insurance to cover smash and grabs, law enforcement to investigate these crimes committed to feed addictions and to try to stop the flow of heroin.
Then there is the cost of health care. Even if you ignore long term problems like HIV or Hep-C infections contracted by sharing needles (hundreds of thousands of dollars per person), just responding to overdoses is very expensive. [0]
>In December 2016, the City of Vancouver approved a small property tax hike, which was intended to help address the opioid overdose crisis. Councillors passed a budget that included a 0.5 per cent property-tax increase to support front-line service providers, which is in addition to the 3.4 per cent increase already in place to deal with the fentanyl crisis.
>..
>According to the report, the total funds available in the 2017 contingency fund for the opioid crisis is $3.5 million and the remaining amount after the above expenditures is $1.4 million.
That is only the monetary cost, there is a mental cost as well. [1]
>A health and safety worker with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services says he's never seen stress and anxiety so rampant among first responders.
>Acting captain of occupational health and safety Steve Fraser says the ongoing overdose crisis has many firefighters dealing with emotional and mental fallout because of their job.
>...
>Another big issue, Fraser says, is "compassion fatigue" which comes from sometimes treating the same people time after time.
>"It's that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that what you do is not making a difference," he said. "For all of us … why we do it is we do want to make a difference. So, when we see that fail time and time again it does start to take its toll."
Heroin clinics would help solve most of these issues. [2]
>Crime Issues: 60% drop in felony crimes by patients (80% drop after one year in the program). 82% drop in patients selling heroin.
>Death Rates: No one has died from a heroin overdose since the inception of the program. The heroin used is inspected for purity and strength by technicians.
>*Disease Rates: New infections of Hepatitis and HIV have been reduced for patients in the program.
>Note: The Swiss save about 38 dollars per day per patient mostly in lowered costs for court and police time, due to less crime committed by the patients.
The question is, what costs (both financial and societal) are we willing to bear to support addicts?