Overdose Rates Fell in 2018—but Still Remain Unfathomably High

The White House claimed credit for the improvement—on the same day it once again threatened health insurance for the poor.

Overdose rates fell in 2018 for the first time in 28 years, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the death toll still remains unfathomably high: In 2018, some 67,000 Americans died of overdoses, compared to 70,000 the year before. That makes 2018 the second-deadliest year for drug overdoses in US history, claiming more lives than gun violence or car crashes.

CDC

Overdose rates in 2018 decreased significantly in 14 states, including some that have historically been the worst hit by the opioid crisis, like West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Life expectancy, which had declined for the past three years in part due to soaring overdose rates, increased slightly in 2018, to an average of 78.7 years. But drug deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl continued to rise in 2018, as did those involving cocaine and psychostimulants like methamphetamine.

CDC

The Trump administration was quick to claim credit for the good news: “This has not happened through coincidence—it’s happened through causation,” said White House advisor Kellyanne Conway in a press briefing on Thursday. James Carroll, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, used the occasion to promote the wall at the Southern border, which “is one of the many tools that we are using to counter drug traffickers,” he said.

Yet experts point to different factors, including the decline in opioid prescription rates since 2012. Though Trump promised to “spend the money” necessary to address the opioid crisis, the administration’s efforts have largely fallen short. Trump’s ongoing attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act threaten addiction treatment coverage for millions of Americans. On the same day that Conway touted Trump’s overdose prevention efforts, the White House rolled out plans to to significantly cut Medicaid funding, which provides insurance coverage for one in five low-income Americans.

“This improvement came about in spite of the Trump Administration,” said Stanford drug policy expert Keith Humphreys, noting that Congress has “successfully resisted many of the cuts to Medicaid and to health exchanges that Trump has tried to implement, which would have worsened the epidemic.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate