About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2025, according to preliminary government data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, a decline of roughly 14% compared with the prior year. The CDC said the downward trend continued for a third straight year and that the 2025 total was about the same as in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic drove overdose deaths higher.
The CDC also said the declines were visible across multiple drug types, including fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. Although the overall pattern fell in most states, the preliminary data showed seven states recorded at least slight increases—an inflection that included jumps of 10% or more in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.
Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends, told reporters he is “cautiously optimistic” that the 2025 results reflect “really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis.” At the same time, Marshall cautioned that the pace of improvement could slow and that future deaths could climb rapidly if prevention efforts wane. Marshall warned, “If deaths are going down rapidly, that means they can increase just as rapidly if we take our foot off the gas.”
Researchers have pointed to multiple factors behind the rise and fall in overdose deaths across recent years. The AP story said deaths climbed for decades before surging during the pandemic, when overdose deaths peaked at nearly 110,000 in 2022 and were associated with social isolation and barriers to addiction treatment. As the pandemic waned, researchers pointed to a range of possible contributors, including increased availability of naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people used drugs, and the growing impact of opioid settlement money.
The same federal and academic accounts described why the situation can vary across regions. The article said the overdose epidemic has played out at different paces in different parts of the country, and that differences in the illicit drug supply and in what people are using may help explain local changes. In particular, Marshall suggested that increases in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico could stem from more combined use of fentanyl and methamphetamine in those places.
Federal officials and public health experts have also warned that new substances continue to enter the U.S. drug supply. Alex Krotulski, director of the federally funded Center for Forensic Science Research and Education toxicology lab in Horsham, Pennsylvania, said the lab identified 27 new drugs in all of last year. Krotulski said that by less than five months into 2026, the lab already had identified 23 new drugs, underscoring a rapidly shifting drug landscape.
Krotulski said among the drugs on the lab’s radar is cychlorphine, a potent synthetic opioid described as up to 10 times stronger than fentanyl. Experts told reporters the substance is being used as a cutting agent and added to other illicit drugs without the buyer’s knowledge, while Krotulski said, “The drug supply continues to change and evolve.”
The AP report also described federal policy changes announced by the Trump administration that could affect harm-reduction services aimed at preventing overdoses and drug-related infections. In a letter last month, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notified grant recipients that the government would no longer pay for test strips and kits that help drug users see if their drugs contain highly lethal additives.
The article said officials are shifting away from services that facilitate illicit drug use, including clean syringes and hotlines people can call while using drugs. It also reported that last week a group of women who lost children to overdoses spoke with reporters to protest what they described as government policies that emphasize punishment and incarceration, including Kimberly Douglas, who founded Black Moms Against Overdose after her 17-year-old son died.
Douglas said, “We are starting to see overdoses go down in some places and that’s because of harm reduction” services like those being targeted by the Trump administration.