In 2022, the US arrives A terrifying peak Drug overdose deaths: About 108,000 people died that year, more than double the number who died in 2015 and more than four times the number in 2002.
Now, in what experts hope is more than a blip, the overdose epidemic that has affected every state in the country may show some signs of abating.
Basic CDC information The 12-month term ends in June showed that Overdoses fell by about 15 percentage points from the previous period. There are still roughly 94,000 overdose deaths, indicating that the public health crisis is far from over, although a positive change may be on the horizon.
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America’s overdose crisis was exacerbated decades ago by the growing use and addiction of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, which have permeated the nation’s drug supply.
Fentanyl was first produced in the 1960s and prescribed by doctors to patients, such as cancer patients, to relieve severe pain. A cheaper, more potent cousin of heroin, the drug soon became a preferred product of traffickers, who began cutting other drugs with fentanyl and attracted addicts to prescription painkillers like oxycodone that became harder to access. As my colleague Jerman Lopez wrote in 2017, fentanyl has made America’s opioid crisis — already the deadliest drug crisis in US history — even worse.
So what can turn the trend? In the latest episode of Vox Today, explained Podcast We asked Lev Facher, a reporter covering addiction at State News.
“There are no events that happened about a year and a half ago that would explain this sudden significant drop in drug overdose deaths,” Facher said. “While there’s a lot of optimism in the world of harm reduction and addiction medicine and recovery, it’s cautious optimism because people don’t really know what’s going on.”
Even so, Facher said, experts and advocates have a few possible explanations:
Explanation 1: Drug supply is changing
The simplest explanation for the decrease in overdoses may be the nature of the drug; They may simply become less toxic and less potent. Last month, DEA Administrator Ann Milgram made the suggestion Crackdown on that organization There was a direct impact on drug supply.
“The cartels have reduced the amount of fentanyl because we’re putting pressure on them.” He spoke at the National Family Conference on Fentanyl, which brings together families who have lost loved ones to the drug.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data may not give us a complete picture of the effectiveness of cartel crackdowns, but agency data shows that Seizure rates of fentanyl at the border Hardly consistent. In January 2024, CBP seized 1.3 million doses of the drug. The number of seizures dropped significantly in June before rising again to nearly 1.3 million doses in August.
And data on the potency of illegal drugs is limited, because drug-tracking systems vary from community to community, Facher told Vox.
“In places that have done really good drug testing, some changes have been detected in terms of the drugs people are using, but nothing that would explain this sudden drop,” he said.
Explanation 2: Medicines are being used more safely
Another explanation could be that harm-reduction efforts are working. Access to naloxone, the life-saving, overdose-reversing drug, has expanded significantly in US cities over the past few years. Local government eg Los Angeles County Schools, churches, libraries and prisons have made the drug available and every day Americans are increasingly being encouraged to carry naloxone.
Harm-reduction campaigns may have implications for recreational “party” drug users, who may favor stimulants but may unknowingly take fentanyl if a dealer mixes it with cocaine or MDMA. Drug testing kits like Overdrive Available from retailers like Amazon for less than $15 and provides step-by-step instructions for testing drugs for fentanyl.
Data also suggest that the way people take their medications can reduce the chance of dying from an overdose. Smoking fentanyl is becoming increasingly popular than injecting it, and is linked to the former Less serious overdoses and blood-borne infections.
Explanation 3: The crisis has already taken the most vulnerable lives
A third explanation, advanced by some epidemiologists, is the darkest, and suggests that after tens of thousands of people died of drug overdoses in a relatively short period of time, The epidemic is essentially burning itself out.
“It’s a concept called ‘degeneracy of the sentient,'” Facher said. “And it’s to say that so many people have already died of drug overdoses that there aren’t many drug users left to die. This is not necessarily a mainstream theory. And even if it were accepted, it probably wouldn’t explain the entirely significant sudden drop in drug deaths.”
The staggering death toll from the opioid epidemic, however, may be a contributing factor to the decline in youth drug abuse. An analysis from KFF showed a small drop in opioid abuse among high school students from 2017 to 2023. Maia Szalavitz writes for The New York Times“Drug epidemics are often cyclical. Younger generations witness that certain drugs harmed their older siblings or parents, causing them to avoid these substances.”
Can the decline be sustained?
The latest data on overdose deaths comes amid an important presidential transition. While the addiction crisis is a marquee issue for both Republicans and Democrats, the incoming Trump administration includes high-level officials who have been intimately affected by it.
Vice-President-Elect, JD Vance, spoke extensively about how opioid addiction has affected his mother and his community of Middletown, Ohio. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is in addiction recovery himself, and his policy proposals include a network of “Health Farm” to serve As a treatment facility. It remains to be seen whether the administration will focus its efforts or give more attention to addiction recovery. to law enforcement And US-Mexico border.
“There’s a potential shift toward law enforcement and fears about a shift away from treatment,” Facher said. “Most of my sources talk about harm reduction, treatment prevention and really keeping people alive [by] Meeting them where they are and getting them the services they need to lead healthy lives is the foundation for ending this drug crisis.”
