Overdose deaths decline for second year in a row, down 14% nationwide

Overdose deaths fell again this year, according to caller statistic from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fanning wellness experts’ hopes that the opioid situation could beryllium turning around.

About 97,000 radical died of cause overdoses nationwide successful the 12 months ending June 30, a 14% diminution from the aforesaid play a twelvemonth earlier, erstwhile 113,000 radical died, the CDC said successful information released Wednesday.

While cause overdose deaths are known to emergence and fall, this marked the 2nd consecutive twelvemonth of decline.

“This is simply a beauteous stunning and accelerated reversal of cause overdose mortality numbers,” said Brandon Marshall, a researcher of overdose trends who is based astatine Brown University. “This seems to beryllium important and sustained. I deliberation there’s existent crushed for anticipation here.”

In New York State, the fig was adjacent much pronounced, from 3,612 overdose deaths down to 2,945 — marking an 18.5% drop. New York City saw a 12% decrease, from 3,305 to 2,900.

In New Jersey, overdose deaths went down 21.5%, from 2,997 to 2,354. And Connecticut saw a astir 19% decline, from 1,462 down to 1,188.

Provisional information successful May showed a drop successful overdose deaths for the archetypal clip since 2018, though the fig was inactive astatine situation levels. Between December 2022 and December 2023, the fig declined 3%. Though that was considered negligible arsenic a standalone, the latest accusation could bespeak that measures enactment successful spot to combat the situation were bearing fruit.

But cause deaths are inactive higher than pre-pandemic levels, CDC statistic show.

“During the pandemic we saw specified a meteoric emergence successful cause overdose deaths that it’s lone earthy we would spot a decrease,” Farida Ahmad of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics told The Associated Press.

What’s more, wealth promised successful settlements of lawsuits filed by states, tribes and section governments against pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers and others who helped substance the emergence successful opioid addiction has started to travel successful and is being enactment to use, Marshall noted.

With News Wire Services