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The main point: Provisional data shows a steep decline in overdose deaths in 2024, a major reversal from previous years.
The data:
- The provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows that an estimated 80,391 people died from overdoses in 2024.
- That’s down 27% from 110,000 in 2023. The 30,000 fewer deaths is the largest one-year decline ever recorded. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018.
- All but two states saw declines, with Nevada and South Dakota seeing small increases. Some of the biggest drops were in Ohio, West Virginia, and other states that have been hard hit in the overdose crisis.
- There were an estimated 54,743 deaths involving opioids, including 48,422 involving synthetic opioids, as well as 29,456 deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (meth) and 22,174 involving cocaine.
Synthetic opioids continue to be involved in most overdose deaths (60%), but those deaths dropped 37%. Deaths involving psychostimulants decreased 21%, and deaths involving cocaine fell 28%.
The explanation: More research is needed to understand what drove the reduction, but possible factors include:
- Increased availability of naloxone
- Expanded addiction treatment
- Shifts in how people use drugs
- The growing impact of opioid settlement funds
- The shrinking number of at-risk Americans, etc.
BUT:
- Overdose deaths are still higher than they were before COVID.
- The recent decline could be slowed or reversed by cuts to federal funding and staff and a shift away from strategies that seem to be working (e.g., cutting SAMHSA, Medicaid).
Read more: US overdose deaths fell 27% last year, the largest one-year decline ever seen; US drug overdose deaths saw an unprecedented drop in 2024, but federal cuts could threaten momentum
Published
May 2025