The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 14% decrease in drug overdose deaths from June 2023 to June 2024, marking the first decline in decades. States such as North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia saw the largest decreases.

NEW YORK — The decline in U.S. drug-overdose deaths appears to have continued this year, giving experts hope the nation is seeing sustained improvement in the persistent epidemic.

That trend seems to be continuing downward, with drug deaths declining for a consecutive 12 month period ending in June 2024 by an even greater 17%, according to new CDC data released this week. Overdose deaths take a while to be measured,

U.S. drug overdose deaths are on pace to fall to the lowest levels since 2020, according to new provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a hopeful milestone amid efforts to stem the epidemic.