"From 1999 to 2020, nearly 841,000 people died from drug overdoses,[7] with prescription and illicit opioids responsible for 500,000 of those deaths"
Here's a chart showing overdose deaths from all drugs in the US- yes there's definitely a large spike from 'synthetic opioids' at the end there that's probably all illegal fentanyl. But notice the blue line for 'prescription drugs' was very very steady for the entire length of the chart. That's an enormous number of deaths from completely legal, regulated drugs!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/US_timel...