- The number of fatal overdoses in the United States fell last year, according to CDC data, the second annual decline since the drug death epidemic began.
- Experts interpret this decline cautiously, noting that it is part of a plateau and that there is a possibility of future increases.
- The reasons behind the decline remain unclear, ranging from changes in drug supply to expanded prevention efforts.
The number of overdose deaths in the United States decreased last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday.
Officials said the data is preliminary and subject to change after further analysis, but a decline is still expected when the final tally is released. This would be only the second annual decline since the current national drug death epidemic began more than 30 years ago.
Experts reacted cautiously. One person said the decline was relatively small and should be considered part of a plateau rather than a decline. Another noted that the last time there was a decline was in 2018, but drug deaths have skyrocketed in the years since.
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“Any decline is encouraging,” said Brandon Marshall, a researcher at Brown University who studies overdose trends. “But I certainly think it’s too early to celebrate this crisis or draw any sweeping conclusions about where we’re going in the long term.”
A container of Narcan, the brand-name version of the opioid overdose recovery drug naloxone, is seen in Washington, D.C., Sept. 8, 2023. The number of overdose deaths in the United States in 2023 will decline for the second time since the current national drug death epidemic began more than 30 years ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this number on May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Marshall and other experts also said it was too early to know what spurred the decline. Explanations could include changes in the drug supply, expansion of overdose prevention and addiction treatment, and the grim possibility that the epidemic killed so many people that it is now essentially killing fewer people. be.
CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deb Hawley called the drop “encouraging news” and praised efforts to bring the tally down, but added, “An alarming number of families and friends who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses… It’s still there,” he said.
The CDC estimates that about 107,500 people died from overdoses in the United States last year, including both American citizens and noncitizens who were in the country at the time of death. This is a 3% decrease compared to 2022, when similar deaths were estimated at 111,000, officials said.
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The drug overdose epidemic, which has killed more than 1 million people since 1999, has had many ramifications. For example, a study published last week in JAMA Psychiatry estimated that from 2011 to 2021, more than 321,000 U.S. children lost a parent to a fatal drug overdose.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who led the study, said “these children need support” and are at high risk for mental health and substance use disorders. “It’s not just the loss of a person, it’s the impact of the loss on the family left behind.”
Prescription painkillers once drove the nation’s overdose epidemic, but they have been replaced by heroin a few years ago and more recently by illegal fentanyl. Dangerously powerful opioids were developed to treat severe pain from diseases such as cancer, but are increasingly being mixed with other drugs in the illicit drug supply.
For years, fentanyl has been frequently injected, but increasingly it’s being smoked or mixed into counterfeit pills.
The number of seizures by law enforcement of pills containing fentanyl has increased dramatically, jumping from 44 million in 2022 to more than 115 million last year, according to a study released last week.
One of the study’s authors, Dr. Daniel Ciccarone of the University of California, San Francisco, said the seizures may indicate that the overall supply of fentanyl pills is rapidly increasing, and that police are not necessarily investigating the supply of illicit drugs. He said that this does not mean that they are reducing the number of people. .
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He noted that the decline in overdoses has not been uniform. All but two states in the eastern half of the country saw declines, while most states in the west saw increases. Alaska, Washington, and Oregon each saw a 27% increase.
reason? Many eastern states have been dealing with fentanyl for about a decade, but it only recently reached western states, Ciccarone said.
Nevertheless, some researchers say there is reason to be optimistic. Smoking fentanyl may not be as deadly as injecting it, but scientists are still investigating that question.
Meanwhile, more money is available to treat addiction and prevent overdoses through government funding and legal settlements with drug companies, wholesalers and pharmacies, Ciccarone said.
“We hope that 2023 will be the beginning of a turning point,” he said.
