The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...
Now if we're in a discussion around the cartels, plenty of people do bring up (and there's also those that get annoyed by it) that the drug users are actually the ones funding the cartels via their drug use.
Along these lines, I think another fun comparison might be opioid use and Purdue.
eg: I grew up in a very nasty place. My neighborhood had a few pregnant 13 year old girls and a lot of drunks and smokers, including kids in their early teens. My parents kept me away from it all, while also both having full-time jobs. They put a lot of work into filtering whom I could be friends with and where I was allowed to be. THAT is the job of a parent.
But at systemic level, we must consider the effect of social dynamics globally, not only how the most virtuous citizen deal with the direct situation. Pauperisation of the masses will mechanically lead to more social problem on the overall, even if they will always be brilliant heroes to point to as possible through exceptional behavior. And society that are structurally helping everyone to fall in distress or weak situation also help the exceptional people go further as they are freed from many cognitive loads they would have to deal with otherwise.
