United States overdose deaths in 2025 fell to levels similar to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overdose deaths for the 12-month period ending in October 2025 fell to roughly 68,000, the lowest they have been since the peak of more than 111,000 overdose deaths in 2023.
The number of overdose deaths has not been this low since before October 2019, when there were roughly 69,000 overdose deaths.
Overdose deaths started to climb steadily in the 1990s, with deaths involving opioid painkillers. That trend continued with waves of deaths from heroin and illicit fentanyl.
Opioids are still responsible for the vast majority of overdose deaths, with more than 44,000 opioid-related deaths recorded in the October 2024 to 2025 period. That’s more than 64% of the 12-month total.
But opioid-related overdose deaths have fallen well below pre-pandemic levels, when there were more than 50,000 in the December 2019 year-to-date period.
Psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine and amphetamines, were the second largest category in overdose deaths at nearly 26,000, followed by nearly 19,000 cocaine-related overdose deaths.
Overdose deaths for both psychostimulants and cocaine increased during the pandemic and have only slightly declined since.
CDC data released in late February indicates that much of the decline in overdose deaths in recent years has resulted from a sharp decline in opioid overdose deaths, which were down by roughly 30% between 2023 and 2024.
That decline from nearly 80,000 opioid-related deaths in 2023 down to 54,000 was largely driven by decreases in fentanyl-involved overdoses.
Experts have offered multiple different theories why overdose deaths involving opioids have steadily declined, including the increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone as well as the growing impact of multibillion-dollar opioid lawsuit settlements.
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Substance abuse among Americans over age 12 rose from 7.4% in 2019 to 16.8%, or 48.5 million, in 2024, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration within HHS.
