Opioid Overdose Deaths Plunge in Oregon

Drug overdose deaths continued to plummet across the country in 2025, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, falling 13.9% nationally from December 2024 to December 2025. The state with the biggest decline was Oregon, where overdose deaths fell by 35%.

North Carolina and New York also reduced their overdoses by more than 30%, according to data from the CDC.

It was the second year-over-year decline for Oregon, which previously had experienced seven straight years in which deadly overdoses rose. The decline is largely due to a reduction in fentanyl deaths, according to a new report from the Oregon Health Authority. 

“We’re encouraged by these drops, but we can’t let up now,” Dr. Tom Jeanne, deputy state health officer and epidemiologist with the Oregon Health Authority, told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Our overdose rates are still far above where they were five, six years ago.”

The trend matches what’s being seen in major cities across the country, where researchers are searching for explanations for the decline. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested the rapid rise and fall of fatal overdoses was due to fentanyl’s saturation of the drug market. 

Over the last decade, fentanyl transitioned from being an adulterant — an added ingredient in street drugs to reduce their cost and increase potency — to replacing commonly-used opioids like heroin, OPB reported. 

“Fentanyl is so potent, about 100 times more potent than morphine, so it’s really dangerous for people who are not familiar with it,” Jeanne told OPB. “It takes a while for that to kind of ripple through and for users to become used to the changes.”

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