NPR reports on a very exciting improvement in the fentanyl epidemic:
For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S. “This is exciting,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse [NIDA], the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. “This looks real. This looks very, very real.”
National surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6 percent. That’s a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages. Some researchers believe the data will show an even larger decline in drug deaths when federal surveys are updated to reflect improvements being seen at the state level, especially in the eastern U.S.
“In the states that have the most rapid data collection systems, we’re seeing declines of twenty percent, thirty percent,” said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, an expert on street drugs at the University of North Carolina. According to Dasgupta’s analysis, which has sparked discussion among addiction and drug policy experts, the drop in state-level mortality numbers corresponds with similar steep declines in emergency room visits linked to overdoses.
Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, is an expert on the U.S. street drug supply. He believes data shows a sudden drop in drug overdose deaths nationwide that could already by saving “roughly 20,000 lives” per year.
Dasgupta was one of the first researchers to detect the trend. He believes the national decline in street drug deaths is now at least 15 percent and could mean as many as 20,000 fewer fatalities per year.
There are still too many, obviously. But this sharp decline is unprecedented and it’s very good news.
They don’t know what’s causing it. There is speculation that the availability of naloxone is a key while others think that one of the newer ingredients in the racipe seems to elay withdrawal which means people may be using less fentanyl. The timing of the sharp rise and the subsequent drop may also indicate that the COVID epidemic was a factor. (I think the trauma of that event, with everything that went with it, caused much more disruption than we will be able to measure for some time to come.)
Anyway, this is unalloyed good news and we should be able to feel a little sense of relief that this terrible problem has not only stopped getting worse but that it’s actually improved. We need more of that.