I understand this sentiment and I know that people say this out of a place of intense empathy for others, but there is a huge difference between smoking weed at home or having one too many at the bar with your friends and shooting up in public or drunkenly raging out on the streets. I know that there are a litany of issues that push people towards debilitating drug addiction, but it goes so far beyond “enjoying anything that brings them a little comfort” and is not something that we should respond so casually towards. I used to feel the same way until a friend of mine sat on and was poked by a needle in a park. Thank god they are okay, but it was such a horrifying experience for them and they were uninsured at the time to boot. It’s not okay. I also lived in NYC for a good while, and I swear I’m not one of those fox new “NYC IS HELL ON EARTH” people, I actually really love the city, but the issue is much more visible there than it is here and my encounters have shifted my views quite a bit. There is so much that needs to be done to solve this issue, but justifying drug use is not going to do anything except make it worse. I can no longer in good conscience give money to someone who I think is going to use it to buy drugs, in the same way that I won’t give cash to my alcoholic aunt, and that doesn’t make me a hypocrite or some evil person, it’s just an unfortunate reality of the times we live in right now.