US Overdose Deaths Fell 14 Percent in 2025 to About 70,000

About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2025, a 14 percent decrease from the previous year, according to preliminary government data released Wednesday. It was the third straight annual drop, the longest decline in decades. The 2025 total matches the tally from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Declines were recorded across fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. Overdose deaths fell in the vast majority of states, although Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico reported notable increases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. U.S. overdose deaths had risen for decades before surging during the pandemic to a peak of nearly 110,000 in 2022.

The increase was linked to social isolation and reduced access to addiction treatment. Deaths began declining as the pandemic eased.

These include greater availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, changes in drug-use patterns, and funding from opioid lawsuit settlements. Some research suggests the pool of people at high risk of overdose has shrunk because fewer teenagers are starting to use drugs and many long-term users have already died.

Regulatory changes in China several years ago are also thought to have reduced the supply of precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. “I’m cautiously optimistic that this represents really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.

The number of overdose deaths remains high. Government policy changes or shifts in the illicit drug supply could reverse the downward trend, researchers said. “If deaths are going down rapidly, that means they can increase just as rapidly if we take our foot off the gas,” Marshall said.

Health and law enforcement officials have raised concerns about newer synthetic drugs detected in increasing numbers during 2025. Alex Krotulski, director of the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education in Horsham, Pennsylvania, said his federally funded lab identified 27 new drugs in all of 2025.

Less than five months into 2026, it has already identified 23. One substance on the lab’s radar is cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid described as up to 10 times stronger than fentanyl. It is being used as a cutting agent added to other illicit drugs without users’ knowledge.

“The drug supply continues to change and evolve,” Krotulski said. The Trump administration has moved to cut certain programs aimed at reducing overdose deaths and infections linked to drug use. Last month the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notified federal grant recipients that the government would no longer fund test strips and kits used to detect lethal additives in drugs.

Officials said they are shifting away from services that facilitate illicit drug use, including clean syringes and hotlines. Last week a group of women who lost children to overdoses protested the policy emphasis on punishment and incarceration. Kimberly Douglas, who founded Black Moms Against Overdose after her 17-year-old son died, said harm reduction services had contributed to declining overdoses in some areas.