He's seen the needle and the damage done.

This piece of mine ran in last Friday's Boston Globe. It accompanied an Op-Ed by Steve Tompkins, the Sheriff of Suffolk County (which includes Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop and Revere). He advocates for more and better drug addiction treatment and recovery programs, recognizing that the county jails are often the only means of obtaining any sort of treatment for individuals that cannot afford treatment programs outside of law enforcement.  As he states in the op-ed: "...our fellow citizens should not have to go to jail in order to receive treatment."

He and the Sheriff's Department propose things like expanding detox centers, giving medically-assisted substance abuse treatment to inmates in county jails, and more. Read his op-ed here.
Here's a close-up of the piece:

Thank you to Nathan, my AD!