You choose, you pay, not "you choose & I pay"

If you want to use drugs I'd tell you don't. Its a bad, appallingly bad choice. Using meth/ice, cocaine, heroin, cannabis etc is not a wise choice. Sniffing petrol, glues or acetone products are not wise choices. Despite what anyone tells you they are the worst of bad choices, however good or bad your life is, taking these and any of a much longer list of drugs is going to make your life worse, inextricably worse. Many will eventually will end your life in the worst possible, most undignified manner. Some will turn to crime, theft and/or prostitution to raise funds for their addiction. Others will become dealers and peddle death & misery to others to pay for their addiction.

If you use drugs, go for it. I'll tell you not to, I'll try to talk you into getting smart & clean but if you're determined to stay on drugs I cannot physically force you against your will to get off drugs. If you can take drugs & be of no burden to your loved ones, your family & friends or a cost to the economy, the society, the law & order/health budget then its your choice.

It is undemocratic and ethically unfair for me to pay for your addiction as a tax payer. If you turn to crime or become unproductive as an employer or worse choose to stay on unemployment benefits to keep your addiction going you're unfairly forcing me to be one of your enablers. I do not want to be partly responsible for you staying on drugs. Yes, if there's a good chance rehab will get you clean then as a tax payer I'm willing to pay for that. I am not liable to help you stay on drugs.

Have you seen this person? Here's a parallel. Extreme body modifications. Your choice.

Image: Maria Jose Cristerna, known as 'Vampire Woman', holds the Guinness World Record for being the woman with more changes in her body in America (JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/GettyImages)

Now I don't know this person pictured or anything about them but bluntly, what they've done to themselves is their business, their choice. I don't have to be a fan of it, I can be reviled by but its their choice & I won't enforce my thoughts or will upon them.
Similarly I would expect such people to pay for their own life choices. If they can get a job or not be a burden on society that's great, but if they've made themselves unemployable then a full pension to subsidise their "life choice" their cultural creation then its not my responsibility to foot the bill they create. If I go to a pub, have 2 beers and steak sandwich I pay for it. I don't do a runner & make the pub subsidise my nourishment, I don't forward the bill to the government. I pay for my own choices and ensure it doesn't affect others.

If you take drugs, illegal/illicit drugs its a reasonable expectation of a wise society to help you make wiser life decisions & assist you get off drugs. But if you steal, or break any law to fund your addiction you have to go to jail.
Decriminalising drugs won't pay for your drugs so the ill effects on society remain.

Its probably time to build a special drug jail. One that specialises in rehab whilst incarcerated. Where detox & remapping an addicts life with both medical & mental health experts is part of the daily regiment. Where you stay until you're clean and recalibrated or you've served your time for you crimes, whichever comes first. And yes, physical activities like sport, exercise & physical work are a must. Religious instruction to be available to those who choose it.

If you re-offend you should come back for double whatever your sentence is to increase your chances of getting your life in order.

As a member of society I'm happy to be part of the solution and pay for it. The benefits are there for the individual and society as a whole. It is not fair that we as a society pay & suffer for the addiction of others.