heroin can be of greatly varying strength, especially nowadays when you sometimes/often get fentanyl. I used to be addicted to opiates for a period of 2 years (

heroin can be of greatly varying strength, especially nowadays when you sometimes/often get fentanyl. I used to be addicted to opiates for a period of 2 years (with maybe 3 years of recreational use before things got bad), ending in 2017. I have had a very close friend die from a heroin/fentanyl overdose, getting a PhD at the time. I say this to emphasize that even very smart, careful, and reasonable people can overdose and die. I've come close myself a couple times. I would imagine accidental death from pharmaceuticals is much rarer, as the potency is consistent. I'm convinced if we just completely legalized all of this stuff a better outcome would ensue. After all, there are two primary negative effects of illicit opiates in our current system: high stdev of potency, and high cost. Under legalization, the stdev could be reduced to 0 and the cost could be brought down 10 or 100 fold.