Most heroin deaths come from using illegal heroin with unknown strength and unknown contaminants.

The typical death is from getting a new supply that's more concentrated than the old one, and accidentally dying from an overdose.

The other two disasters that happen is that (1) the drug costs huge amounts of money, so you have to become a prostitute and/or burglar or (2) the legal system puts you in jail for 20 years.

I'm not going to pretend that being heroin addict is a good life, but if you can get a clean drug with known strength from CVS for $2/day, it's a vastly better shitty life.