I was never heavy into drugs but I smoked weed a fair bit in my 20s, knew a lot of other daily users of weed as well as some harder drugs. I don’t think I ever came across a person that randomly decided to do drugs for no reason one day and got hooked. They were all people who had pretty messed up problems in their life that were too complex for them to fix on their own.
So it confuses me when people instantly assume that someone is in a bad situation due to drugs rather than them using drugs to deal with a bad situation. And yes I know drug abuse makes problems worse the vast majority of the time but it’s not what I see as the root issue in a lot of cases, the drug use is a symptom/coping mechanism for people that society have let fall through the cracks.
The drugs mess up your brain chemistry. Yes, they were in a bad place and did drugs. Being in a bad place didn’t make them engage in prostitution, break into cars, share needles, sleep outside, not brushing their teeth, not shower, etc. The drugs did that, and the drugs will keep them in that state until they hit rock bottom or die. You are correct that economic blight causes drug addiction, but drug addiction causes peoples’ lives to get so much worse.
I’m in no way saying drugs will fix problems (majority of the time), I’m saying drug abuse should be treated as a symptom and not a cause
It’s both, but you can’t address the mental health and economic circumstances until the person gets clean. They’re not mentally able while they’re on drugs.
I think not addressing the mental health and economic substances until they are “clean”, will make it a lot harder for them to get clean
I don’t understand why we need to pick one or the other when thorough and holistic interventions would work a lot better
I agree with your overall point, this is more of a nitpick on the wording