After decades of devastating increases driven by fentanyl and other toxic street drugs, overdose deaths are dropping sharply in much of the U.S. The trend could mean roughly 20,000 fewer deaths in 2024.
overdose deaths are dropping sharply in much of the U.S. The trend could mean roughly 20,000 fewer deaths in 2024.iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5107417/nx-s1-760e6c90-970f-44ef-8744-0a2d15a1e68b" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Roughly 100,000 deaths are still occurring per year. Street drug cocktails including fentanyl, methamphetamines, xylazine and other synthetic chemicals are more poisonous than ever."I think we have to be careful when we get optimistic and see a slight drop in overdose deaths," said Dan Salter, who heads aBut most public health experts and some people living with addiction told NPR they believe catastrophic increases in drug deaths, which began in 2019, have ended, at least for now.
"This is going to be the best year we've had since all of this started." - Keith Humphreys, Stanford University "We've almost tripled the amount of naloxone out in the community," said Finegood. He noted that one survey in the Seattle area found 85 percent of high-risk drug users now carry the overdose-reversal medication.Sponsor Message
"We don't have anything that would predict this magnitude of effect this quickly," said Dasgupta, the researcher at North Carolina University, who described the reversal as hopeful and also mysterious. Other experts pointed to the end of the COVID pandemic, combined with the high number of people who have already died from drug overdoses, as possible causes of the abrupt change.
"While the mortality data for 2024 is incomplete and subject to change, Ohio is now in the ninth consecutive month of a historic and unexpected drop in overdose deaths," said the organization Eric Breeyear, who lives in a recovery shelter called Good Samaritan Haven in Barre, Vermont, said he was given naloxone repeatedly after experiencing fentanyl overdoses.
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