Drug deaths are down in one Ohio county and much of the US

The Washington Post recently published a story discussing Hamilton County’s successes in battling the opioid crisis. That journey in many ways parallels the nation’s experience at the start of 2025.

The Post reports that drug deaths fueled primarily by illicit fentanyl reached staggering heights by 2023, topping 100,000 for the third straight year. But in the 12-month period ending in August, deaths had decreased by more than 20 percent from the same period the previous year, according to provisional state data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the CDC won’t publish 2024 estimates for several months, experts say there could be more than 20,000 fewer deaths than the year before.

The newspaper spoke with families who lost loved ones and others who survived opioid addiction along with first-responders and community agencies that were among the first line of defense. Tasha Turner-Bicknell, an associate professor of nursing at UC, and a board member of Harm Reduction Ohio also weighed in on the discussion and spoke with the Post. Harm Reduction Ohio supplies free naloxone to a network of distributors on the streets.