It’s one of the biggest public health reversals in decades: Opioid overdose deaths are falling faster than at any point in the modern history of the epidemic. After persistently rising for more than 30 years, deaths peaked at 81,806 in 2022 and fell by almost half, to 44,564, in 2025. The decline helped push U.S. life expectancy to a record high in 2024.
Many want to take credit for this miraculous recovery. Vice President JD Vance says it happened because the administration sealed the border. Public health experts and agencies point to saturating communities with the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and increased access to treatment.