Drug addiction is a complex phenomenon. Why do people start, why do they get addicted, why do they choose one drug over another, why do they choose to quit, how hard is it to quit, are there resources that can help them?
Obviously there are dozens of possible interventions, short of murder.
It's said that one use of heroin will turn someone into an addict, and something like 2% of opioid addicts die per year. Legalizing drugs may make things safer per person, but it will also increase the number of users. Legalizing fentanyl would just flood the streets with something even more potent than heroin and get millions more addicted.
If there were a legal fentanyl clinic down the street from you, would you use it just because it was legal? Doubtful. But someone intent on using it would get it anyways so why not get a pure form in a safe place while starving the cartels of capital?
Look at the history of the opioid crisis. It really started becoming a crisis when oxycodone became easy to get a prescription for. Pill mill doctors would give out hundreds of prescriptions a night to be spread through the streets, causing millions more to be addicted. If legalizing opiates helped, Purdue Pharma should have been one of the greatest benefits to public health, no?
Ie: go to a doctor or similar health worker, get a prescription for the thing you’re dependent on, pick up that prescription, do your thing and go on with life.
Is this “giving drugs to drug addicts”? Yes.