When 2024's provisional overdose data came out earlier this year showing a 27% drop in deaths from 2023 rates, Nabarun Dasgupta, a University of North Carolina epidemiologist who studies street drugs, felt immense relief.

"I felt like I could exhale for the first time in 20 years," Dasgupta said in a recent interview with the health policy news organization Tradeoffs. "When we verified [the data] and felt like this [decline] was real, I think I slept better that night than I had in a long, long, long time."

Experts say several factors have likely contributed to the steep decline in drug fatalities between 2024 and 2023, including a less deadly drug supply, easier access to addiction treatment and increased distribution of naloxone (also known as Narcan). Dasgupta's analysis, published in

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