"Context: Overdose deaths in 2024 dropped to their lowest annual level since 2019 after rising during the COVID pandemic, reversing a surge that killed more than 100,000 Americans in 2023, per CDC data. About 76,000 people died specifically from synthetic opioid overdose in 2023, the paper said. State of play: Purity rates and fentanyl overdose deaths decreased at about the same time, researchers found."
""That is heartening because street-level enforcement can result in large and racially disproportionate increases in incarceration while at the same time there is little evidence that tougher domestic enforcement, either at the street level or at the wholesale level, can make drugs more expensive or make them harder to acquire," they wrote. The so-called fentanyl "drought" could also be an opportunity to increase prevention and treatment programs."
There was a major disruption in the illicit fentanyl trade, possibly tied to Chinese government actions, that translated into sharp reductions in overdose mortality beginning in mid- or late-2023 and continuing into 2024 across the US and Canada. The Trump administration has cited fentanyl in foreign-policy actions and an executive order declared illicit fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. Overdose deaths in 2024 fell to their lowest annual level since 2019 after a pandemic-era rise that produced over 100,000 US deaths in 2023, including about 76,000 synthetic-opioid deaths. Purity rates and fentanyl overdose deaths fell concurrently. Official US and Canadian data and Reddit discussions point to a supply disruption. Effective drug-supply control may not require mass arrests, and the fentanyl "drought" presents an opportunity to expand prevention and treatment programs.
Read at Axios
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