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• Posted December 5, 2024

U.S. Overdose Deaths Linked to Fentanyl May Be Declining

Deaths from fentanyl-linked drug overdoses have begun to decline in the United States, but the crisis is far from over and those numbers could easily rise again, a new government report shows.

About 70% of fatal drug overdoses recorded in 2023 involved fentanyl, the research showed. The number of these deaths dropped 7.8% nationwide in the second half of 2023 compared to the second half of 2022, new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

However, there were several caveats to the findings: While fentanyl-linked deaths fell in the Northeast, South and Midwest, they surged in the West, according to a team led by CDC researcher Lauren Tanz.

Also, the emergence of carfentanil, a new form of opioid "100 times more potent than fentanyl" is now causing deaths in rare cases. Those numbers could begin to rise as carfentanil penetrates the market, the researchers warned.

The new numbers are based on federal data for 2021 through to the end of 2023. During that time, over 251,000 people lost their lives to drug overdoses, with more than 188,000 of those deaths involving fentanyl.

However, after peaking at 16,814 deaths in the second quarter of 2023, fentanyl-linked deaths declined by 4.7% nationwide in the third quarter of that year and then by another 11.2% in the fourth quarter, Tanz' team said.

Why the downturn?

Multiple factors could be at play, including the fact that fentanyl has so saturated the illicit drug marketplace that many users have developed a "tolerance" and/or are simply more careful when using opioids, the researchers said.

Some users are also more recently mixing fentanyl with other drugs, such as xylazine, which may reduce the danger of fatal overdose.

Overdose prevention programs have also sprung up across the United States, the researchers noted, and "this could be partially responsible for the decline in overdose deaths starting in late 2023."

However, there was one major outlier, the American West.

In that region, deaths linked to fentanyl actually jumped by nearly 34% between 2022 and 2023, the report found.

Tanz and colleagues believe that could be because fentanyl "entered western U.S. drug markets later than other regions, likely because of challenges [of] mixing fentanyl into the black tar heroin that was more common in the West."

So, users there may not have developed the tolerance and experience in dealing with the drug that's been observed in other regions of the country.

In the meantime, declines in deaths elsewhere are certainly no reason to become complacent, the researchers said.

Carfentanil is only playing a minor role in deaths for now, but "overdose deaths could substantially increase if carfentanil further infiltrates the drug supply, as evidenced by previous outbreaks," Tanz and team wrote.

The findings were published Dec. 5 in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information

Find out more about the dangers of fentanyl at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Dec. 5, 2024