Xylazine is not an opiate and has its own withdrawal effects. Also people are often not well educated on drugs or even know what is in the drugs they take. It is an adulterant and it is a street drug, so switching to 'another opiate' without an adulterant in it isn't going to be easy. Even pills are fake nowadays.

There is absolutely no valid reason we can't treat people with suboxone, which will allow them to maintain their addiction without getting high. However it needs a prescription and doctors usually won't just prescribe it to addicts, especially for extended time periods.

This could all be 'fixed' if people didn't have a subconscious need to make people 'pay' for doing things they feel are wrong.

A good example of this is when I got a complete workup done by a liver specialist, having been a very hard drinker earlier in life. Upon telling a close family member that everything came up fine and there were no lasting effects they commented 'that shouldn't be right' as if I had cheated society somehow by not having health consequences for being an alcoholic.