probably the most effective way to actually address drug addiction in middle america is to shut the fucking churches down, as they're overwhelmingly responsible for the brainwashing leading to drug addiction in the first place.
what's surprising about this is not that the right is returning to this paternalistic position about drugs but that it adopted this liberal position on drug users, after thatcher, for so long. that was what was weird, these conservatives sounding like hardcore liberals, and wanting to bring back the poor laws.
these words don't mean much anymore, but what should each of these categories of people and voters actually think about these worthless, garbage, useless eater drug addicts that are clogging up the arteries of north america and making it difficult to navigate through streets, hospital hallways and funeral homes?
libertarians: libertarians believe in self-ownership. it's your body, your stroke, your brain damage. that's up to you. libertarians don't believe the state should be regulating drug sales or drug use. if they are consistent, they also don't believe the state should be responsible for the consequences of drug use on the individual. go sleep in the gutter, fool. life is about choices, and you fucked up and have to deal with it, but it was always up to you to make those choices, and the state has no role to play in protecting you from yourself, or in protecting others from you.
conservatives: it actually should be the conservatives trying to help the junkies from harming themselves; that is a conservative position, as a good god-fearing conservative should be trying to help the wretched, lost souls back to jesus. that's what being a conservative is supposed to be about, saving the lost and healing the blind. legitimate, ideological conservatives should support what is called "harm reduction" with the intent of healing the sick and saving the lost and they may support extremely strong penalties for drug dealers, who are seen as evil doers that are damaging the community.
liberals: liberals are supposed to be very similar to libertarians, but they're also supposed to be guided by a smug feeling of self-righteousness and moral superiority that is not generally present in libertarians. they may consequently tend to lean towards criminalizing some drug use, because it's not in the common good. however, to the extent that the liberal position is similar to the libertarian position, it differs in that liberal moral superiority, which is largely calvinist in origin. to the ideological liberal, the addicts on the street are not just fools that made bad choices, but the wretched and the fallen and the possessed, that have been thrown out of the elect and should be scorned and ridiculed and made an example out of, as those singled out by god to suffer for their sins and left to die in their own filth.
socialists and anarchists: socialism has no fucking patience for worthless junkies. in socialism, all drug use should be criminalized as anti-social, as it reduces the potential of the proletariat to participate "according to their ability" and renders them worthless wards of the state that need to be supported by the labour of others. both drug users and drug dealers should be sentenced to death and executed, and the margin of error should be on making sure you don't miss any. drug use is essentially a virus that should be eradicated by quarantining the afflicted to death, and there will necessarily be collateral damage. anarchists are a little less extreme than socialists, but don't fundamentally have different views, we just don't want to be quite as vicious about it, and may not support capital punishment, ideologically. that said, socialists and anarchists will also acknowledge that the root causes of addiction lay in capitalism, and seek to address the issue at it's root causes, while ultimately conceding that people make choices and need to be held responsible for them, at gunpoint.
nihilists: drugs are fun, and people should get welfare checks for drug use, because fuck you, anyways. being a utility monster is just normal self-interest; the only thing that matters is maximizing self-interest. the society should pool it's resources to ensure that addicts have access to safe drugs because drugs are fun and labour sucks. capitalist existence is meaningless, anyways, so what difference does it make? somebody is making a profit, and the best thing to do is find out who it is and look for a cut. everybody needs to look out for themselves. and fuck socialism!
as mentioned, i would personally largely support capital punishment for drug dealers. while i don't support aggressively treating the addicts for the reason that it just doesn't fucking work, i think that the resources should be accessible to addicts should they make that choice on their own. little to no public resources should be wasted on saving junkies, as society has a more deserving base of impoverished people that resources should be directed towards, instead. i also think that drug related crimes (theft, mostly, but also sexual assault and violence more broadly) should be seen as a special category with longer and less lenient sentences. that is, if you rob a store for meth money, you should go to jail for a longer sentence than if you rob a store for some other reason.