Safe as in the drugs themselves are safe to take over long periods of time if you know how to use them and you don't abuse them. They simply don't cause any serious long term damage to your body. Opiates are godsend for millions of people worldwide, they give people relatively cheap and consistent pain relief for diseases or injuries that would otherwise cripple them. They're also great as a last resort, after all other medications fail, for people with depression and social anxiety. And as long as you have access to them you'll experience no symptomes of withdrawal.

The "problem" with opiates isn't a problem with the drugs themselves but with the culture we live in. American doctors are quick to prescribe strong opiates for relatively minor injuries or diseases without clearly explaining the dangers of taking them. Yes it is very possible to OD on opiates, it's also easy to reverse an opiate OD but few people know that, especially when uneducated people think opiates are a slightly stronger versions of aspirin and think that even though their doctor says to take 1 every 8 hours that they can take 4 and be okay. Or even worse when people ignore the warning on the prescriptions not to mix with alcohol or benzodiazepines and opiates and then suffer respiratory failure because mixing depressants is a horrible idea. And then you have teenagers, for god know what reasons, think that taking opiates are cool so they take a 150mg oxy with no tolerance, drink a few beers and then die because they didn't research safe dosages. Opiates can absolutely be used recreationally, although that's not what I'm advocating, if you space out your doses, don't take a stupid amount of them and don't move up to stronger opiates. I feel like scaring people away from drugs is just going to cause more harm in the long run.

Basically my point is that opiates are safe but people being uneducated about them isn't safe.