U.S. overdose deaths fell through most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic

February 5, 2026

U.S. overdose deaths fell through most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades. Recently released Federal data showed that overdose deaths have been falling for more than two years — the longest drop in decades — but also that the decline was slowing. And the monthly death toll is still not back to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone where it was before the current overdose epidemic struck decades ago. A Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends said, “Overall I think this continues to be encouraging, especially since we’re seeing declines almost across the nation,”. Overdose deaths began steadily climbing in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths from heroin and — more recently — illicit fentanyl. Deaths peaked at nearly 110,000 in 2022, fell a little in 2023 and then plummeted 27% in 2024, to around 80,000. That was the largest one-year decline ever recorded. An estimated 73,000 people died from overdoses in the 12-month period that ended August 2025, down about 21% from the 92,000 in the previous 12-month period. Experts have offered multiple possible explanations: increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money. Some also point to research that suggests the number of people likely to overdose has been shrinking, as fewer teens take up drugs and many illicit drug users have died. In a paper published last week in the journal Science, University of Maryland researchers point to the drug supply. They say regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of the precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl. Another clue came from a DEA report that the purity of seized fentanyl also dropped since 2023. Pills sold on the street in 2024 contained about one-third of the fentanyl as those sold in 2023.

That doesn’t mean the drug is less dangerous, the DEA report noted, as dealers began mixing powerful veterinary tranquilizers in their drugs at around the same time. While the decrease in overdose deaths is great news, we can't ease up on our efforts to combat the disease of addiction. Here's the link: US overdose deaths slowly declined in 2025, data shows | AP News