Coast to coast, major U.S. cities are seeing measurable drops in drug overdose deaths. Public health officials welcome the news despite an inability to fully explain the decrease.
After years of rising, the tide may finally be turning on deadly drug overdoses in America.
Drug overdose deaths fell 12.7% in the 12 months ending in May, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is the largest recorded reduction in overdose deaths,” White House officials said in a statement. “And the sixth consecutive month of reported decreases in predicted 12-month total numbers of drug overdose deaths.”
It’s also the first time since early 2021 that the number of estimated drug overdose deaths for a 12-month period fell below 100,000, to 98,820.
It’s categorically good news. It’s also a bit puzzling to the public health experts who have been working for years to stop the upward trajectory of opioid deaths, driven primarily by fentanyl.
Public and first responder access to Narcan. Paramedic and I haven’t had to administer it in months thanks to bystanders, law enforcement and fire rescue getting it on board before I arrive
I went to pick a prescription at my local Walmart today (texas) and they had a sign saying that they have narcan or noloxone available. My guess is the easy access to narcan and the awareness of it nowadays.
Nobody I know will even buy weed off the street anymore because of fentanyl. I’m willing to guess people are hyper aware of it, no matter what their drugs of choice are.
And people are testing their drugs for fentanyl now because of that hyper awareness. Public awareness, easier access to narcan, and fentanyl test strips are probably big contributors to the decrease in OD deaths
I’ve seen that as well, along with various methods of testing/purifying becoming common depending on the compound.
Because druggies are dying and are not being replaced fast enough
Hypothesis: More people are waiting to see who wins the presidential election before deciding if overdosing is the best escape plan.
The article isn’t loading for me, but only looking at the past few months or years isn’t indicative of a larger trend, because COVID caused outliers in just about every data set. I’ll believe it if it’s down compared to 2010 and earlier.
Edit: it loaded, and yeah when they compare to 2018 it’s similar or slightly down. So it’s just returning to pre-covid levels.
