Overdose deaths in the US fell nearly 30,000 last year, the government reported Wednesday.
Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the latest in a series of reports over the past year, providing hints that the number of drug-related deaths that have disrupted families and communities is beginning to ease.
Public health experts were skeptical at first, then raised hope, and looked carefully at monthly updates. Wednesday's report was the most encouraging thing ever. Mortality was reduced in all major categories of drug use, stimulants, and opioids, and in all but two conditions. Nationally, drug deaths have plummeted by nearly 27%.
“This is the decline we've been waiting for over a decade,” said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, a doctor and former director of West Virginia's drug management policy. “We've invested hundreds of millions of dollars into addiction.”
Addiction experts said changes in illicit drug supply and greater access to drug treatment and the use of naloxone appear to play a role in reverse overdose, but whether the country can maintain its progress was an open question.
The CDC praised President Trump in releasing the new figures, saying in a statement that it “declared the opioid crisis in 2017 as a public health emergency.”
But new data was testifying at Capitol Hill on the proposed cuts of many federal health programs, including those dealing with the drug crisis.
“There are many deep cut types that are working on many programs that are driving these reductions, so we don't know how they can be maintained,” said Traci C. Green, an epidemiologist at Brandeis University who studies drug use.
“It seems ridiculous to cut that momentum so dramatically,” she said.
And despite progress, drug deaths remain high. Data shows that 80,391 people died in 2024 from drug-related causes. This was the lowest tally since 2019 before closure of isolated drug users and treatment facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a surge in overdose lethality. However, Dr. Green called the latest numbers “very high and unacceptable.”
The CDC statement said the improved numbers showed that public health interventions “make a difference and have a meaningful impact.” Still, he noted that overdose among Americans ages 18 to 44 has remained a major cause of death.
The constellations of the factor may be accelerating the drops, but experts don't know which one has the most impact. Dr. Christiansen said addiction was a particularly elusive crisis in combat, as it had tentacles in the patients' economic, familial, cultural, social and medical background. The series of interventions include not only emergency response and treatment, but also ongoing care that encompasses housing and vocational training.
“Funding is currently being revoked, but we still don't know what the appropriate level of intervention is for each particular community, town, region, or nation,” he said. “People and programs will go through the cracks.”
According to a reserve budget distributed among federal agencies, the CDC's opioid surveillance program could be reduced by $30 million and folded into a new plot, a healthy American administration. The Department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, a federal agency that coordinates and monitors support program grants and provides training and data analysis, faces more than $1 billion in cuts and will also be folded into new fragmentation.
According to the latest survey by the Agency on Substance Use, in 2023, 27.2 million Americans over the age of 12 had substance use disorders, 28.9 million people suffered from alcohol use disorders, and 7.5 million people suffered from both.
At a hearing Wednesday, before the House Appropriations Committee, Pennsylvania Democrat's president Madeleine Dean took Kennedy to the task, noting his own history of heroin addiction as his son is recovering from opioid addiction. She said she couldn't understand the rationale for the administration's cuts in light of the fatal improvements in speed.
Speaking to Mr. Kennedy, she said: “You know these families. You are these families. Please help us save more lives.”
