SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Preliminary data indicates that overdose deaths in the U.S. dropped 24% last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday. That’s a drop of 114,000 during the 12-month period ending last September, compared to the previous year.
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“It is unprecedented to see predicted overdose deaths drop by more than 27,000 over a single year,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, Director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “That’s more than 70 lives saved every day.”
However, that doesn’t mean the risk of overdose deaths has completely evaporated. Tragic evidence of the continued risk can be found in the Bay Area, where a series of recent overdoses resulted in the deaths of two Santa Rosa teens.
According to the CDC’s Tuesday announcement, overdose remains the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 through age 44, “highlighting the importance of sustained efforts to ensure this progress continues.”
KCBS Radio interviewed David Herzberg, a history professor at the University at Buffalo who researches the nature of U.S. drug policy, this week on drug policies this week in the wake of the fatal Bay Area overdoses.
“Some smart kids might look at the headlines they’ve been seeing for the last couple of decades and still wanting to experiment and explore the way young people like to do,” he explained. “And they think, ‘Well, I don’t want to do opioids because I've just been seeing all of this devastation and all these overdoses.’ So, it might be a relatively smart kid’s choice to be like, ‘Well, I’ll try something else when I’m experimenting.”
Unfortunately, fentanyl – a powerful opioid that contributed to a sharp rise in overdose deaths in recent years – can also be found in street drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. In Santa Rosa, the teens who overdosed reportedly thought they purchased cocaine but got fentanyl instead.
“I’ll tell you what I tell my kids,” said Herzberg. “I’m not a drug warrior guy, but I say: ‘This is a really incredibly dangerous time to be using any kind of illicit substance. Like, it’s a you’re… making a gamble with your life because that supply has been poisoned.’”
Although drug overdose deaths dropped from October 2023 through last September, there were still 87,000 fatal overdoses reported and increases were reported in five states: Alaska, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Utah. It’s the lowest number reported since June 2020.
Audacy reported last September on research that indicated there had been a significant decrease in U.S. overdose deaths. At the time, it wasn’t clear what exactly caused the decline, though experts believe a variety of factors may have contributed to the drop. In October, Audacy also reported on research that showed fentanyl in the U.S. was being watered down with BTMPS, an industrial chemical.
In its Tuesday announcement, the CDC said “multiple factors contribute to the drop in overdose deaths, including widespread, data-driven distribution of naloxone, which is a life-saving medication that can reverse an overdose; better access to evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders; shifts in the illegal drug supply; a resumption of prevention and response after pandemic-related disruptions; and continued investments in prevention and response programs like CDC’s flagship Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program.”
During his first term in office, President Donald Trump declared opioid overdose to be a public health emergency in 2017. That designation remains in place, “and the subsequent public health investments to CDC from Congress have transformed the nation’s ability to use data to save lives,” said the centers.
Now in his second term, Trump has proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico. He’s cited fentanyl as one of the reasons to put these tariffs in place.
“I think, historically speaking, they have not been effective at anything but the very shortest of term disruptions of the supply chain,” said Herzberg regarding the use of tariffs as a means to reduce drug overdoses. “And that’s because it’s going to be hard to inflict enough economic damage to really make it worth disrupting this incredibly profitable industry of selling drugs to the United States.”
He also said it would be extremely difficult to stamp out all transport of fentanyl into the U.S., since only small amounts are dangerous and it is a powder that’s easily smuggled into the country.
Herzberger said that generational knowledge is a powerful tool in preventing drug abuse and overdoses.
“For example, the opioid crisis originated in places that were largely populated with white people. And that... kind of generational knowledge has had more time to take hold in those areas,” he said. “And the fastest growing rates of overdose now are in Black and brown communities, where there’s a wide number of factors contributing to that.”
According to the CDC, the data shows that the U.S. is moving in the right direction, though there is work to do.
“Expanding access to evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders – including medications for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine and methadone – is important, in addition to building more community-driven interventions and promoting education and early intervention to prevent substance use disorders before they begin,” said the centers.
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