01/24/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1WuCbP1kY2/
Overdoses had been rising inexorably for 20 years until a recent descent—and although the change is something to celebrate, the root of the problem may be far outside of U.S. policy makers’ control, Charles Fain Lehman argues. https://theatln.tc/bb1KzoDl
In 2023, death rates from overdoses started dropping: In Canada, opioid-overdose deaths declined 17 percent in 2024, then continued falling sharply in the first six months of 2025. In America, preliminary data indicate that total drug deaths fell from their peak of just shy of 113,000 in the year ending August 2023 to about 73,000 in the year ending August 2025.
“Although the numbers are still too high, the public-health community has responded to the decrease with jubilation—and confusion,” Lehman writes.
According to a new paper recently published by a group of drug-policy scholars in the journal “Science,” a novel theory may explain the decline in overdose deaths: The reversal, the authors argue, is not because of any American or Canadian policy—but due to a sudden fentanyl “drought,” which they say may have its roots in China.
“If right, their conclusion implies a disheartening lesson amid the otherwise-welcome news,” Lehman argues. “Nothing American or Canadian policy makers did—no amount of law enforcement, harm reduction, or opioid-settlement funds—made deaths start falling, the paper implies. America and Canada’s drug problem might be in China’s hands.”
📸: Salwan Georges / The Washington Post / Getty
