The laser has to disable the drone in seconds, though. Wouldn't a laser with sufficient power to do so cause collateral vision damage from the diffused reflection? Think of a drone flying low and fast into a political rally with a crowd. You don't know the intentions of the pilot so it must be disabled immediately. Many people will look up at the source of noise and thus be exposed. I wonder if e.g. a birdshot cannon would actually be safer.

Your own troops would be issued PPE — in this case, laser protective eyewear.

This is already a thing due to the widespread use of laser rangefinders, designators, and the like, as well as the fact that the Chinese have fielded blinding laser weapons.

Not thinking troops so much as civilian use/defense, hence the political rally example.

Once laser defenses are more common you can put mirrors on the bottom of the drones to protect them...

In future warfare, I'm pretty sure these will be fully autonomous to avoid jamming and latency issues.