Ah, the "progressive" argument. Let people rot to death, it's the compassionate way.

There are millions of people on opioids like Suboxone, Tramadol, hydrocodone, etc that aren't "rotting to death". Opioids, in general, don't have many deleterious effects on the body the way that things like alcohol, cigarettes or amphetamines do.

We let people smoke cigarettes and alcohol, both of which are physically more dangerous than opiates. There's even research that tobacco is as addictive as or more addictive than most opiates. I wouldn't call this argument "progressive" and instead call it "consistent with what Americans do with some drugs that are taxed".

Oh I am sorry, I forgot that we spend hundreds of billions of tax dollars on providing safe spaces for smoking cigarettes, free smoking paraphernalia, treating smoking overdoses in public spaces. Great analogy!

It is also the libertarian argument: The government shouldn't tell people what to do with their own body.

Then again, ideally the government would be hard at working making society nice enough to live in that people don't turn to opiates...

Letting people have full agency in their choices - sure. But not the big government part.

The government is concerned with outsourcing manufacturing to make widgets cost less.