Welfare States

I used to live in Melbourne and I find that these countries have a lot of facilities in place to help their people. They are termed as a welfare state and through high taxes, they manage to help people for example drug addicts by providing free drug rehab care and help. This is indeed good as it helps to clean up the society of negative influences and help these people get back on track to have a better life. I guess the downside are the high taxes the normal citizen has to bear.