[fredfish]

An interesting and upbeat article.. But the death rate from overdose went from 9 to 32 per 100000 in the last 2 decades. Using their entrance logic, if I understand what this means afa per annum, couldn't that amount to a few hundred per 100000 who are not cycling into long prison terms because they are dead?

There's been something like 900k excess deaths since 1968 compared to if the rate was just flat since then. That's a lot of people who probably had a much higher chance of incarceration than average even if you only consider drug law and the more recently someone was born the more likely they are to have already overdosed at any given age.