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The most recent monthly provisional overdose death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the rate of fatal overdose continuing to decrease nationally, but at a slower pace than it had been previously, and with a corridor of increasing fatalities in the West. Within that corridor, Arizona appears to be separating onto its own trajectory, with the increase slowing down even as it speeds up in neighboring states.
The data, announced July 15, cover the 12-month period between February 2025 and February 2026. So far jurisdictions have reported 67,531 overdose deaths for that time period. The predicted number of deaths, which is considered to be more representative since death records aren’t all reported at the same time and a small portion (0.24 percent) are still pending investigation, is 68,641. That puts the national overdose rate approximately where it was in 2019.
Overdose rose sharply at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, after already rising almost continuously since the CDC began tracking this data in 1999. But in 2023 the trajectory abruptly reversed, and for the past two-and-a-half years the provisional data have shown the national rate continuing to drop each month. In 2024 the rate of fatal overdose decreased by more than 26 percent. But in 2025 this decrease slowed to half-speed. In the most recent report, the national rate of decrease is 12.1 percent.
Behind the national average, there’s always been a wide range in how the crisis is experienced in different parts of the country. Nebraska and South Dakota were still reporting slight increases even when the national rate first began to plummet in late 2023.
In New Mexico, where overdose has been rising the most sharply, the predicted number of deaths is 1,037, a 27.1-percent increase from the 816 deaths predicted during the 12 months leading up to February 2025. In Colorado the increase is 14.2 percent, with 1,852 predicted deaths up from 1,622 in the 12-month period a year earlier.
South Dakota (+12.5 percent) is predicting 90 overdose deaths, up from 80 during the same 12-month period a year earlier. Other states in which overdose has continued to rise are North Dakota (+7.1 percent) with 120 predicted deaths; and Minnesota (+1.7) with 1,008 predicted deaths; Montana (+1.2 percent) with 175 predicted deaths. In Nebraska the rate of change was 0, with 149 predicted deaths.
Outside of the Western corridor, overdose has continued to drop.
In the previous monthly report that list had included Alaska and New Hampshire for the first time. The most recent data show overdose in both states starting to drop again, with Alaska (-6.2 percent) at 324 predicted deaths and New Hampshire (-0.8 percent) at 258 predicted deaths.
Though Arizona had previously experienced a surge comparable to New Mexico’s, the past several monthly reports have showed that surge slowing to half-speed, which is not the case in New Mexico and Colorado. The latest number of predicted deaths for Arizona is 2,914, up from 2,695.
Between the provisional death count published in April and the most recent one in July, New Mexico’s rate of change increased from about 16 percent to over 27 percent. Colorado’s increased from 10.3 percent to 14.2 percent. But Arizona’s rate of increase fell, from 21 percent to 8.2 percent in the most recent report.
Outside of the Western corridor, overdose has continued to drop. The latest data show the jurisdictions with the steepest decreases are Rhode Island (-34.3 percent) with 203 predicted deaths; Oregon (-29 percent) with 1,044 predicted deaths; and Puerto Rico (-25.8) with 435 predicted deaths.
Overdose data are subject to a ton of inconsistencies, stemming from the various ways death investigations are conducted at the county level, and so these reports are most useful when viewed in terms of the overall scope and trajectory of the crisis rather than putting too much weight on fluctuations between smaller numbers. Alongside the latest monthly report, the CDC also published county-level overdose death data covering December 2024 through December 2025.
Fentanyl pill purity has dropped sharply in recent years. But this is not the same thing as supply reduction, and is not the result of fentanyl seizures at the border. There is still no evidence that fentanyl interdiction reduces overdose, not just because the federal government doesn’t actually evaluate what if anything its fentanyl seizures accomplish but because this strategy has never been shown to meaningfully reduce drug-related harms. It’s usually shown to increase them, in the long run.
Image (cropped) via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention