You missed the part where those are 2 very different facets of the war on drugs and opiate addiction was heralded in by the companies that made the pills fraudulently advertising them as being addiction free. Legalization and decriminalization help to end casualties of the war on drugs but education and decreased access to opiates stops opiate deaths. Opiates were never without safe supply the supply caused the problem. For every death from fentanyl being somewhere it shouldn't there are dozens from it being right where it was always intended to be... sold as an opiate.

Increasing "safe and legal" access to opiates is how we created the opiate epidemic in the United States, reopening the pill mills won't stop opiate addiction or deaths.