Overdose deaths in the U.S. fell 17% in 1-year period, CDC says
Drug overdose deaths in the United States fell 17% between July 2023 and July 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report released Wednesday.
Since 2021, over 100,000 people have died of overdoses each year in the United States. A record number of overdose deaths — over 108,000 — were recorded in 2022. The numbers dipped in 2023 and have continued to drop monthly throughout 2024.
While overdose deaths for 2024 have not been calculated yet, and will not be until after the end of the year, the CDC said that deaths fell 17% in a one-year period. It's the largest decrease in deaths ever seen in the United States, White House Domestic Policy Council Advisor Neera Tanden said Wednesday.
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said the decrease shows that the Biden administration's efforts to reduce overdose deaths are working.
"For far too many years, drug traffickers counted their money while we counted our debt. And we needed to turn that around. We needed to understand that this is a global business, and we need to treat it like one," said Gupta.
Gupta said that making treatment more accessible and cracking down on cartel leaders and drug production, including working with China to stop the production of precursor chemicals in the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has helped save over 500,000 American lives.
Gupta also credited the recent expansion of naloxone, an medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. Some naloxone products are now available over-the-counter.
"A soldier or a trauma doc will tell you the very first thing you need to do is to (stop) the bleeding," Gupta said. "If you don't do that, nothing else matters. We cannot treat dead people."
While the decline is promising, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, emphasized there will likely still be "nearly 100,000" overdose deaths in the United States this year.
"If we've learned anything over the past decade, it's that there is not one single factor driving the overdose crisis nor a magic bullet for solving it," Volkow said in a statement to CBS News. "We must continue to prioritize efforts to prevent drug use, treat addiction, provide access to lifesaving harm reduction services, and support people in recovery that are equitable and accessible to everyone who would benefit from them."
The vast majority of overdose deaths in the United States involve opioids, including fentanyl. There has been a decrease in such deaths, CBS News previously reported, but a rise in deaths involving psychostimulants like meth and cocaine.