(+ several paragraphs with theories as to why)
This is the least surprising to me. The drop coincides with the end of lockdowns, which they don't propose as a possibility.
The thing is that's really something that could go in either direction. Has a lethal virus, which is still circulating widely, made deaths go up? Has the lockdown decreased driving, making road deaths fall? Has the strain on the healthcare system meant things like cancers went undiagnosed, making deaths go up? Has the fact the oldest and least healthy people died in the pandemic made post-pandemic deaths go down? Did the boredom of lockdowns drive more people to use hard drugs, making deaths go up? Did the pandemic-triggered rise in remote working let people convert their commute time into exercise time, making deaths go down? Did the pandemic, and seeing other people's response to it, lead to a rise in selfish behaviour like bad driving, making deaths go up? Did work-from-home replace unhealthy on-the-go meals with healthy home-cooked food, reducing obesity and making deaths go down?
cool it there Mr. Winter Of Death
Counterpoint: Most of the people I know who picked up drug addictions (all who have received treatment and currently recovered) picked them up from social situations. They encountered groups where drug use was their common weekend activity and you either joined them or you weren’t included.
Being in between jobs or having a job with low demands was also an enabler of drug addiction. Idle hands and all that.
> Just having a social life will not only keep you addiction-free but also enables you to use the same substances recreationally in a healthy way
This generalization doesn’t hold at all. I haven’t heard of any addicts who became more moderate of their use of hard drugs when surrounded by other users of those hard drugs. The correlation goes the other way. Being around other users both enables and encourages more drug use.
There are plenty of people who drink alcohol around other alcohol-users and the social dynamic limits how much they drink (don't want to appear foolish or out of control around friends or coworkers, match number of drinks to the people they're with, etc).
There are also plenty of examples of people using "party drugs" on weekends socially and that those same friends are the first ones to voice concern if a person in the group starts using the drugs more often or in excess.
In many cases, it's when people switch from using drugs with friends to using them alone that is the turning point to addiction and problematic usage.