A lot of money is being spent on this, but the obvious solution--providing addicts with known, tested opiates and safe places to use--is illegal. Addicts are most certainly a group that can be profited off. We have entire industries that do that, sometimes exclusively: sugar, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, big pharma, etc. In fact, it's this intention of our laws to encourage such profiting off of the suffering and deaths of addicts that I think is the reason no one is really trying to fix much. The other reason is, likely, that this is a rather unfixable cultural problem stemming from poverty, loneliness, and other cultural factors.
Methadone clinics, rehabs and other places like that, however, do profit off of addicts' recovery and may even have genuine intentions of helping (it seems to vary from place to place). Those profits are minor compared to the profit off of addicts' misery and death, however, and their efforts are not usually talked about much in the press. Laws also hold back such institutions from providing good treatment and dehumanize the addicts trying to stay clean. In many places, addicts are treated horribly and made to suffer intentionally by the staff, often having to wait around sick for hours just to see a doctor before getting a dose of methadone even though they've been on the program for years. They are made to line up daily or weekly for a dose when a regular prescription would do just fine, even after they've been on methadone for years. At many of these clinics, it's a wonder that anyone stays clean. There is no professionalism. Doses are messed up when addicts travel and they are left without their methadone. Staff end up stealing either money or methadone. There is no accountability. Not all clinics lack compassion and treat addicts badly, but many do. It's no wonder these places try to fly under the radar while the good clinics and rehabs are too busy helping addicts to be in the press or make much noise. If cancer or heart patients were treated this way, you can bet your ass there'd be a national backlash, but our society has been conditioned to have no compassion for addicts. This is the result. It's ugly and nasty.