There are different kinds of sympathy and sympathy can be used as a policing tactic. The Jim Crow racial system was premised in some ways on the idea that white women needed to be protected from black men who wanted to rape them. And this sympathy, it wasn't true sympathy. It was policing white women's sexuality and it was policing black men. So that one thing you can do is think about what you mean when you have sympathy for drug users but not allow your sympathy to be a tool of policing.