A recent scientific study identified the reduced supply of fentanyl as one of the primary factors behind a significant drop in the number of overdose deaths since the latter half of 2023.

There were roughly 76,000 fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl, in 2023, according to the research published last week in the journal Science. That total increased more than 25-fold over the 15 years before that, but then it “began to sharply reverse in mid-2023, dropping the annual rate of fentanyl overdose deaths by over a third by the end of 2024,” according to the research.