Updated at 1:35 p.m.
Opioid overdose deaths fell in Vermont for the second consecutive year, the state Department of Health reported on Monday, mimicking a national trend that has encouraged experts despite uncertainty over which interventions are having the biggest impact.
The number of people who fatally overdosed on opioids in Vermont last year — 183 — represents a nearly 25 percent decline from the 236 deaths recorded in 2023. Health officials say they’re encouraged by the drop, even though the toll remains well above pre-pandemic averages.
“Vermont’s communities know the lasting toll the opioid epidemic has taken in our state,” interim Health Commissioner Julie Arel said in a statement. “Seeing this decline in overdose deaths is heartening, but we can’t take our foot off the gas.”
Overdose deaths are falling at a similar rate nationally, according to provisional data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Increased access to treatment and overdose-reversal medication has likely played a role, along with awareness campaigns aimed at drug users.
But some researchers have also pointed to changes in the illicit drug supply that they say may be leading to fewer deaths.
Fentanyl sold on the street appears to be getting weaker in some parts of the country, the New York Times reported this winter, perhaps in part because of increased law enforcement efforts to crack down on the international supply chain. The increased prevalence of the animal tranquilizer xylazine may also be a factor, since it has sedating effects that can lead people to use less each day.
And some experts posit that a decline in deaths was inevitable, theorizing that fentanyl has been killing drug users at such a rapid rate that there are simply fewer people at risk these days.
In Vermont, some of the steepest declines were in southern counties, which have long been among the hardest hit areas. Rutland, Windham and Bennington counties reported a combined 35 overdose deaths last year, compared to 86 in 2023. Chittenden County, meanwhile, has reported an average of 50 deaths each of the last three years.
Fentanyl continues to be implicated in almost all overdose deaths, while heroin has virtually disappeared from Vermont’s data, with it involved in just three deaths. Cocaine was involved in two-thirds of the deaths — a significant increase compared to just a few years ago, suggesting that many people are using more than one substance.
The state also reported an increase in the number of fatal overdoses that didn’t involve opioids, a figure that is tallied separately. Forty-two people died in 2024 from overdosing on drugs such as alcohol, methamphetamine or benzodiazepines, a nearly 20 percent increase over the previous year.