The data, the first CDC update on provisional monthly overdose deaths released since the federal government shutdown, offers the most encouraging sustained signal in a generation for an epidemic that claimed nearly 110,000 lives at its 2022 peak. Researchers cannot yet explain the turnaround with confidence, and Trump administration moves — including the cancellation of roughly 2,000 federal grants affecting addiction treatment and prevention programs — have raised questions about whether the progress can continue.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data Wednesday showing that an estimated 73,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending August 2025, down about 21 percent from the 92,000 deaths recorded in the prior 12-month period.
The figures, the first CDC update on provisional monthly drug overdose deaths since the federal government shutdown, extend a streak of falling deaths that researchers said is the longest sustained decline in decades — though they warned the pace of improvement has slowed.
“Overall I think this continues to be encouraging, especially since we’re seeing declines almost across the nation,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.
The data in detail
The decline has been broad. The CDC reported that overdose deaths fell in 45 states during the period. Deaths rose in Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, New Mexico, and North Dakota, though officials noted it is likely that not all overdose deaths have been reported in every state, and future data could affect the state count.
The new figures follow what federal officials described as the largest one-year drop in overdose deaths ever recorded. Deaths peaked at nearly 110,000 in 2022 — the culmination of decades of escalating fatalities tied to opioid painkillers, then heroin, then illicitly manufactured fentanyl — before falling to around 80,000 in 2024, a decline of about 27 percent.
The 21 percent reduction in the most recent 12-month period, while still substantial, marks a slower rate of improvement than 2024’s historic drop.
Competing theories for the turnaround
Researchers cannot yet say with confidence what drove the decline. Experts have offered multiple possible explanations: increased availability of naloxone, the overdose-reversing medication; expanded addiction treatment programs; shifts in drug-use behavior; and the effect of billions of dollars flowing from opioid lawsuit settlements.
Two papers published last week offered additional hypotheses.
University of Maryland researchers, writing in the journal Science, argued that regulatory changes in China several years ago appear to have diminished the availability of chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. Their argument draws on U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data showing that fentanyl purity rose during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic but fell after 2022, suggesting production became more difficult and the drug’s potency was diluted. A rise in online reports of a fentanyl “drought” among U.S. drug users in 2023 provided one corroborating signal.
“We thought we could make a case,” said Peter Reuter, one of the paper’s authors.
The Maryland team suggested that a recent slowing of the decline could reflect producers in Canada and Mexico locating alternative chemical sources — a concern that several experts said warrants monitoring.
University of Pittsburgh researchers, writing in the International Journal of Drug Policy, offered a separate theory: that pandemic-era federal stimulus payments to households contributed to the overdose surge, and that the end of those payments helps explain the subsequent decline. The researchers tracked three rounds of stimulus checks issued in 2020 and 2021 and observed surges in overdose deaths following each distribution.
Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco, said both arguments appeared to have merit while cautioning against treating either as definitive.
“I personally think it’s more complicated,” he said, with those partial explanations layering on other trends.
Policy uncertainty clouds the outlook
Researchers raised questions about whether Trump administration policies could disrupt the decline’s momentum.
The Maryland and Pittsburgh research teams noted that sharply higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports have strained relations between Washington and Beijing, and speculated that China might ease pressure on sellers of fentanyl precursor chemicals in response. The relationship between U.S.-China trade policy and fentanyl supply chains, the researchers said, is a variable federal officials should track.
The Pittsburgh researchers noted separately that President Trump has proposed a $2,000 payment to American households to offset rising prices from China tariffs. Donald Burke, one of the paper’s authors, urged federal officials to consider carefully how any such payments are structured, citing his team’s findings linking prior stimulus distributions to increased drug purchasing among some users.
The Trump administration also canceled roughly 2,000 federal grants this week in a move that the Associated Press reported is expected to jeopardize programs providing mental health and drug treatment and prevention services across the country.