I (sort of) know someone who is a reformed heroin addict and so is her exP. On the face of things, she is now a model citizen and a loving mother, except that she is jobless and benefit dependent, and her boundaries are still chaotic. Her deep love for them hasn't been enough to keep her and her exP out of prison when the DCs were young, to keep them from running away from home and actually sparking a police hunt for a couple of days when they were in primary school, both her DSs having criminal records and at least one of them to my knowledge being school refuser with no qualifications to speak of, and currently assigned to a young offenders probation officer, and spends all day long hanging around outside Mcdonalds with a bunch of losers and mouthing off on facebook about how much he 'hates the feds'. 
Oh yes, and her DD decided to have a baby at 15.
They do not live in a deprived area ravaged by Thatcher - they live somewhere where life has always been relatively comfortable and easy, and they have a decent clean home in a safe town, courtesy of the state. They may have stood a chance of a decent future. As it is, they sound like their lives won't be that much different to hers - hopefully without the heroin, but as at least one of them to my knowledge is already completely obsessed with vodka and very strong cannabis, who knows?
But I suppose it's the government's fault.