30,000 Less People Died from Overdoses in 2024. Should We be Celebrating?

Donna Mae DePola told me she "got clean" the day the Mets won the World Series on October 25, 1986. Since then, she's spent 37 years in the detox and rehab field, trying to help others stay alive and overcome addiction.

Donna Mae DePola volunteers at a ‘recovery living’ center on Staten Island and specializes in detox and after care.

So Donna Mae took special note of the news headlines this week that 30,000 fewer Americans died of drug overdoses in 2024, the largest one-year drop on record.  

Donna Mae volunteers at a 'recovery living' center on Staten Island called Christopher's Reason, named after her wife's son, who died of an accidental overdose in 2011.

"I knew that the death rate went down," Donna Mae said Thursday, reporting she had noticed a shift in the types of phone calls she was accustomed to getting.  

"Every time the phone rang, someone died," Donna Mae said of the trend in recent years. "I haven't gotten that in eight or nine months."

According to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control, the number of fatal overdoses in the United States dropped 26.9 % in 2024 to 80,391. That was down significantly from 110,037 deaths in 2023.  Deaths from opioids, including the dangerous synthetic fentanyl, were also down 28,000....from 83,140 in 2023 to 54,743 in 2024.

Provisional CDC data indicates fatal overdose deaths are down nearly 27 percent in multiple drug categories.

"It's a false sense of security," said Linda Ventura, whose son Thomas died of a heroin overdose in 2012, when the opioid crisis was hitting Long Island especially hard.  "That just means Narcan is working."

Linda Ventura’s son, Thomas, died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2012 on Long Island.

Ventura was referring to the ready availability of Naloxone, known as Narcan, the medicine which has been a game-changer in its ability to prevent deaths by reversing opioid overdoses.  

Rob Kent is the former general counsel for OASAS, the Office of Addiction Services and Supports in New York State.  He also served in the Biden White House, crafting National Drug Control Policy.

"First off, anyone who thinks we're succeeding when we're still losing over 80,000 people a year needs to do something else," Kent told me.  "Now is the time you keep your feet on the pedal."

Overdose deaths are still the leading cause of mortalities for Americans between the ages of 18 and 44.  It's not clear whether expanded treatment services for addiction led to the drop in ODs.  Other experts have observed shifts in the types of drugs people use.

A Queens man addicted to opioids needed emergency surgery on his infected hands after years of injections.

Still, the news that fatal overdoses had dropped in several drug categories was encouraging.  Synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl, accounted for about 60% of the deaths. The number of deaths from methamphetamines was down to 29,500 in 2024 from 48,400 in 2023.  Cocaine deaths dropped 28% in 2024 from the year before.

Back in 2017, when President Donald Trump was in the White House for his first term, he declared opioid use a public health emergency.  In New York State, opioid-related deaths had skyrocketed 300 percent between 2010 and 2020, with opioids present in 85 percent of fatal overdoses in New York in 2020.  The startling increase was tied to escalating drug use during the early years of the COVID19 pandemic.

Linda Ventura, who started Thomas' Hope foundation in her late son's name, is also concerned about the adolescents she is working with, between 12 and 18, who are addicted to cannabis, which is now legal in New York State.  

She said this isn't the first time there's been a decrease in opioid-related deaths.

"The numbers started to go down a few years ago, and then the pandemic happened," Linda Ventura observed, "and we buried more than I care to think about."

Rob Kent said the overdose figures for communities of color "are flat or going up."

We also asked Kent about another class of drugs that started gaining popularity in recent years.

"We've been seeing an increase across the country in meth and other stimulants being used," Kent noted.

Kent also pointed out the CDC numbers are "projections" for 2024 and said he believed the figures are "an undercount.  Some families don't want their (loved ones) to be identified as drug overdoses."

Linda Ventura thinks the substance use crisis in America is evident in the larger number of homeless and people with mental health issues walking the streets or sleeping in encampments.

The streets in the Kensington section of Philadelphia are filled with people battling the double addiction of fentanyl and an animal tranquilizer called Xylazine (tranq).

Donna Mae DePola believes her 'recovery living' center on Staten Island could be a model for addiction treatment.  

"It's the only one in New York State," DePola told me.  "I bought equipment to teach the boys how to do printing.  We have an 85% recovery rate, because people are not told they can only do 30 days."

Many of DePola's clients receive Medicaid assistance.

"Detox and rehabs don't work alone. They have to be attached to 'after care,' DePola stated.

I reached out to the Special Agent in Charge of New York's Drug Enforcement Administration, Frank Tarentino, to get the DEA's reaction to this week's news from the CDC.

"While we are aware of the CDC's provisional numbers, which indicate a decrease in fatal drug poisonings, we must continue to remain vigilant and target those individuals and drug trafficking organizations who poison our communities," Tarentino wrote.  "The DEA remains committed to educating the public on awareness and will work with our law enforcement partners to make sure we decrease the number of poisonings even more. Any life taken from the illicit drugs is a life taken too soon."