The government reported on Wednesday that the U.S. overdose death toll dropped by nearly 30,000 last year, the strongest sign of the country's deadliest and trickiest public health crisis.
Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the latest in a series of reports over the past year that suggests that drug-related deaths have begun to ease families and communities.
Public health experts have been watching monthly updates carefully, first with doubts and then growing hope. Wednesday's report is by far the most encouraging. Among all the major categories of drugs, stimulants and opioids, deaths fell, and in each of the two states. Nationally, drug deaths fell by nearly 27%.
“This is a drop we've been waiting for over a decade,” said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, a physician in West Virginia's drug control policy. “We've invested hundreds of billions of dollars in addiction.”
Addiction experts say changes in the supply of illicit drugs and more access to drug treatments, using naloxone to reverse overdoses appears to be working, but whether the country can maintain that progress is an open question.
The CDC praised President Trump when announcing the new figures, saying in a statement that the administration has added more resources to address the drug problem since he “declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017.”
But the new data comes with Mr. Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifying on Capitol Hill about the government’s proposed layoffs on many federal health plans, including a ruling to resolve the drug crisis.
Traci C., an epidemiologist at Brandeis University.
“It seems ridiculous to cut this momentum so dramatically,” she said.
Despite the progress, drug deaths remain high. According to data, 80,391 people died of drug-related causes in 2024. It was the lowest stat since 2019, with treatment facilities shutting down before drug users isolated from the Covid-19-19-19 pandemic, causing overdose deaths to surge. But Dr. Green said the latest figures are “still very high and unacceptable”.
The CDC statement said improved figures suggest that public health interventions “make a difference and have meaningful impacts”. Nevertheless, it notes that overdose is still the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 44.
While a range of factors may accelerate the decline, experts don’t know which ones have the biggest impact. Dr. Christianson said addiction is a particularly elusive crisis because it has tentacles in the economic, family, cultural, social and medical context of patients. He said a range of interventions include not only emergency response and treatment, but also continuous care for housing and work training.
“The funding is being withdrawn now, and we still don’t know the appropriate level of intervention for every particular community, town, district and state,” he said. “People and plans will fall into a crack.”
According to a preliminary budget issued between federal agencies, the CDC’s opioid surveillance program could reduce $30 million and fold into a new segment, the healthy U.S. government. The Drug Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency that coordinates and monitors support programs and provides training and data analytics, is facing more than $1 billion in cuts and will also fold into a new segment.
According to the agency's latest survey on drug use, in 2023, 27.2 million Americans aged 12 or older have drug disorders, 28.9 million have alcohol use disorders, and 7.5 million have drug disorders.
At Wednesday's hearing, ahead of the House Appropriations Committee, the son of Pennsylvania Democratic Representative Madeleine Dean, who was recovering from opioid addiction, brought Mr. Kennedy to the mission and pointed out his own history of heroin addiction. She said she could not understand the reasons for the government's cuts given the increase in mortality rates.
“You know these families. You are these families. Help us save more lives,” she said in her speech by Mr. Kennedy.
