Opioid-related deaths in the United States have fallen to their lowest level since President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency in 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday.
The announcement in Detroit
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the findings at an event at the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network in Detroit, Michigan, releasing new analysis from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) examining America’s record-low overall age-adjusted death rate in 2025.
“President Trump has attacked the opioid crisis from every direction — rightsizing opioid prescribing, disrupting the fentanyl supply chain, and expanding treatment and recovery,” Kennedy said. “Those actions are saving lives and driving opioid deaths to the lowest in nearly a decade.”
The ASPE report examines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s provisional finding that the overall age-adjusted death rate reached 689.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2025 — the lowest ever reported.
The numbers behind the decline
The accompanying analysis, published in Health Affairs Forefront, examined pharmacy dispensing from March 2015 through March 2026. Using population-adjusted measures, researchers found prescription opioid exposure has fallen dramatically while treatment has expanded:
| Measure (vs. March 2015 baseline) | Level now |
|---|---|
| Opioid prescriptions dispensed | 45.3% of baseline |
| Total opioid dosage dispensed | 35.2% of baseline |
| Patients receiving prescription opioids at retail pharmacies | 49.6% of baseline |
| Patients filling prescriptions for buprenorphine or naltrexone (addiction treatment) | 218% of baseline |
Separately, researchers writing in STAT noted that opioid overdose deaths peaked at 81,806 in 2022 and fell by almost half, to 44,564, in 2025 — a decline that helped push U.S. life expectancy to a record high in 2024.
A decade of policy
During his first term, Trump signed the 2018 SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, strengthening the federal response through prevention, treatment and recovery programs, and pursued a plan to reduce nationwide opioid prescription fills by one-third within three years. In 2018, the Justice Department and DEA proposed lowering 2019 manufacturing quotas for six frequently misused opioids by an average of 10%.
Since returning to office in 2025, the administration has signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act of 2025, while the DEA intensified efforts to disrupt the global fentanyl supply chain and launched its Fentanyl Free America initiative. In January 2026, Trump established the Great American Recovery program to align federal prevention, treatment, recovery support and reentry programs.
“For families living with addiction, saving a life means another birthday, another holiday together, another chance to come home,” said HHS Senior Advisor Kathryn Burgum, co-chair of the Great American Recovery.
The debate over why deaths fell
Not everyone agrees on what drove the improvement. The STAT analysis noted that deaths began falling in mid-2023, months before Trump’s inauguration and the subsequent border crackdown, and argued that neither border enforcement nor naloxone expansion lines up neatly with the timing or scale of the drop. Federal data has also shown the pace of decline slowing.
What is not in dispute is the direction: overdose deaths have now fallen for more than two years — the longest drop in decades — even as about 70,000 Americans still died of drug overdoses last year, according to preliminary CDC data.
What to watch next
Whether the decline holds will depend on the drug supply, treatment access and policy choices in the year ahead. Researchers quoted by the AP have warned that if deaths are going down rapidly, they can rise just as rapidly if progress stalls.
Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, October 27, 2026; STAT, October 23, 2026; Associated Press via MedicalXpress, January 2026.
