>> You are drowning. I throw $1000 at you. Are you saying I should have done more?

> You are drowning. I will jump in and help you get to safety only after you have taken a blood and piss test. Are you saying I should have done more?

I think his point was that if someone's drowning, you throw them a life preserver or jump in and save them. You don't throw them $1000, because that's not the solution to the problem they're actually having. It's not like the water will spit them out if you pay it.

And if your problem is addiction, $1000 might just make your problem worse. That $1000 might as well be considered a pile of drugs or booze.

When I was growing up I was friends with a kid whose Dad actually worked trying to help homeless people in a very cold climate. IIRC, one time they had a program to give out subzero rated sleeping bags, but stopped once they realized they were just getting pawned.

I'm with ya. My point is that his metaphor illustrates how even a helpful for the problem solution might not be helpful given the stipulations he's putting on the help.

You are drowning.

I jump in and help you to shore.

You immediately jump back in and start drowning again.

Someone else helps you to shore

You jump back in and start drowning again.

Eventually everyone who would help you wants some kind of evidence that this time you won't just jump back in before they help you.

You drown.

Are you saying they should have done more?

At some point you put up a fence, either around the drowning pond or around the jumper.

In this metaphor the pond is drugs and the jumper is an addict.

We've tried putting a "fence" around drugs, it doesn't work.

And we've decided that putting a "fence" around addicts (aka prison) is wrong.

So it seems like we really don't have options.

But a homeless person can easily take a drug test.

The real analogy would be that you have to consent to the would-be savior to verify you are actually drowning. Im not sure anyone drowing would think “no thanks ill take my chances”.