Some hopeful trends on opioid overdoses (finally)

While opioid overdoses have been rising for decades, trends in most recent times provide us a glimmer of hope. NPR reports:

For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.
“This is exciting,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse [NIDA], the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. “This looks real. This looks very, very real.”
National surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6 percent. That’s a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages.

Data from the CDC is below. Hopefully this trend continues.

HT: Marginal Revolution.