Overdose deaths decline for second year in a row, down 14% nationwide

Overdose deaths fell again this year, according to new statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fanning health experts’ hopes that the opioid crisis could be turning around.

About 97,000 people died of drug overdoses nationwide in the 12 months ending June 30, a 14% decline from the same period a year earlier, when 113,000 people died, the CDC said in data released Wednesday.

While drug overdose deaths are known to rise and fall, this marked the second consecutive year of decline.

“This is a pretty stunning and rapid reversal of drug overdose mortality numbers,” said Brandon Marshall, a researcher of overdose trends who is based at Brown University. “This seems to be substantial and sustained. I think there’s real reason for hope here.”

In New York State, the number was even more pronounced, from 3,612 overdose deaths down to 2,945 — marking an 18.5% drop. New York City saw a 12% decrease, from 3,305 to 2,900.

In New Jersey, overdose deaths went down 21.5%, from 2,997 to 2,354. And Connecticut saw a nearly 19% decline, from 1,462 down to 1,188.

Provisional data in May showed a drop in overdose deaths for the first time since 2018, though the number was still at crisis levels. Between December 2022 and December 2023, the number declined 3%. Though that was considered negligible as a standalone, the latest information could indicate that measures put in place to combat the crisis were bearing fruit.

But drug deaths are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, CDC statistics show.

“During the pandemic we saw such a meteoric rise in drug overdose deaths that it’s only natural we would see a decrease,” Farida Ahmad of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics told The Associated Press.

What’s more, money promised in settlements of lawsuits filed by states, tribes and local governments against pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers and others who helped fuel the rise in opioid addiction has started to flow in and is being put to use, Marshall noted.

With News Wire Services