SPOKANE — Drug deaths are declining nationally for the first time in years, but they are still increasing in Spokane.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the lethal opioid epidemic may have peaked, as drug overdose deaths across the United States dropped by 10% between the year ending in April 2023 and the year ending in April 2024.
While local deaths are not seeing a decrease, Spokane Regional Health District spokesperson Kelli Hawkins called the news “hopeful.”
“It shows that public health efforts in education, harm reduction and awareness are helping,” she said. “Here in Spokane County, we need to continue those efforts and continue to collaborate with partners to find solutions to the underlying issues that lead to substance use disorder and overdoses in our community.”
A University of Washington researcher said the reasons for fewer deaths nationally might be more grim.
Perhaps the most likely reason why drug deaths are decreasing, according to UW School of Medicine research professor Caleb Banta-Green, is that the growth in the number of new drug users has slowed because so many current drug users have died.
“More people are dying than are starting to use, so the OD rate among those using is likely still high, but the number of total people who are using is getting smaller because so many people have died,” he said.
The national drop in drug deaths is not being replicated in Spokane County or Washington. According to health district data, 262 people in Spokane County died from April 2023 to April 2024. That’s an 18% rise from the 222 people who died from April 2022 to April 2023.
Hawkins said the county often lags behind national trends when it comes to drug use.
“The national data may be an indicator of how our data trends in the future,” she said, “but at this time we are not seeing a decline in overdoses.”
A flattening or slowing in the increase of overdose deaths is expected first, and then, potentially, a drop.
“It is still too early to draw any definitive conclusions,” she said, noting that local data is preliminary and could change.
For the same April-to-April comparison, drug deaths across Washington increased by 13% — one of nine states that saw a drug-death increase during that same period.
Banta-Green said a similar lag happened on the West Coast between 2013 and 2016 as fentanyl proliferated across the country.
“We are seeing our mortality curve bend about three years after the East Coast,” he said.
Banta-Green said no one knows for sure why drug deaths overall are decreasing. Some possible answers include widespread access to opioid antidotes Narcan, buprenorphine and methadone, as well as increased understanding from drug users that pills and powders may contain unknown drugs of unknown potency.
