Drug overdose deaths dropped 14% in the 12-month period ended June 30 compared to the same period a year before, providing more evidence of a sustained improvement after a previous spike in the numbers, the Associated Press reports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing about 97,000 deaths in the 12-month span compared to 113,000 the previous year, which itself was down slightly from the previous year. “This is a pretty stunning and rapid reversal of drug overdose mortality numbers,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends. There have been moments in the last several years when U.S. overdose deaths seemed to have plateaued or even started to go down, only to rise again, Marshall noted. “This seems to be substantial and sustained,” Marshall said. “I think there’s real reason for hope here.”
Overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s because of opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and — more recently — illicit fentanyl. Experts aren’t certain about the reasons for the decline, but they cite a combination of possible factors. One is COVID-19. In the worst days of the pandemic, addiction treatment was hard to get and people were socially isolated, with no one around to help if they overdosed. “During the pandemic we saw such a meteoric rise in drug overdose deaths that it’s only natural we would see a decrease,” said Farida Ahmad of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Still, overdose deaths are well above what they were at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recent numbers could represent the fruition of years of efforts to increase the availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and addiction treatments such as buprenorphine, said Erin Winstanley, a University of Pittsburgh professor who researches drug overdose trends. Marshall said such efforts likely are being aided by money from settlements of opioid-related lawsuits, brought by state, local and Native American governments against drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies. Settlement funds have been rolling out to small towns and big cities across the U.S., and some have started spending the money on naloxone and other measures. In the latest CDC data, overdose death reports are down in 45 states. Increases occurred in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
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