The latest data from the Oregon Health Authority confirms that drug deaths in Oregon have plummeted in the past two years after spiking in 2023.

The agency said Thursday that 1,100 people died of an overdose of illegal drugs in 2025, down from 1,544 in 2024 and 1,833 in 2023, a drop of 40% in two years and the first two-year decline since 2016.

Drug deaths across the country have also fallen overall — by nearly 15% at the end of 2025 compared with the previous year. The only states not to see an improvement last year were Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Deaths dropped faster in most other states in 2024, but the decline in Oregon was among the biggest in 2025, according to federal data.

A number of factors have contributed to the decline in drug deaths, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority told The Lund Report. The misuse of prescription opioids has dropped and there has been a reduction in addiction rates as the state has stepped up treatment and recovery programs, he said.

Users also have shifted from injecting drugs to smoking them and opioid reversal drugs are more available.

And the strength and purity of fentanyl has changed. A report by the Drug Enforcement Agency found that starting in 2023, the fentanyl available on the streets was not as strong as it had been before.

Gov. Tina Kotek also attributed the decline in Oregon to the work of multiple agencies.

“This improvement is the result of deep partnerships between state agencies, behavioral health providers, local officials and law enforcement and shows what is possible when all of us work together,” Kotek said in a statement.

The number of people dying in Oregon from an overdose is still much higher than it was just under a decade ago, when fentanyl first started to flood the market from Mexico, where cartels manufacture the synthetic opioid using base materials from China.

Fentanyl arrived in different states and regions at different times, helping to explain the variations nationwide. Experts say the timing of its arrival in Oregon was a major factor in the growth of overdose deaths in the state in the wake of Measure 110, which was approved by voters in 2020.

Fentanyl, which is prescribed for surgery and advanced cancer pain, is 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Just a speck can be deadly.

Just a few months later, the Legislature recriminalized possession of a small amount of drugs, reversing much of Measure 110.

In the past few years, state officials have dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to the drug crisis, which is centered on fentanyl and methamphetamine. In the late 2000s, with state officials focused on curbing the misuse of prescription drugs, the use of meth started to rise, with Oregon having among the highest rates of use in the country.

In 2024, more than 60% of Oregon’s overdose deaths involved multiple substances, with fentanyl and methamphetamine accounting for 70% of those, state data shows.

“With fentanyl and methamphetamine still involved in most deaths, continued collaboration is critical to sustaining this progress,” John McIlveen, the state’s chief opioid officer, said in a release.

Hospitalizations are also a problem, Oregon’s latest data shows.

In 2024, according to an agency report to the Legislature, more than 4,000 people in Oregon were hospitalized for an overdose and more than 10,000 sought emergency care.

More people in the community have survived overdoses thanks to increased use of naloxone. The drug, which is now widely available and distributed, reverses opioid overdoses. There is not an overdose treatment for methamphetamine, however.

Naloxone is a chief tool in harm reduction, which focuses on saving people’s lives rather than steering them away from addiction. In 2020, the Oregon Health Authority created the Save Lives Oregon program to reduce overdose by distributing naloxone, syringes and wound care kits. The program estimates it’s since helped save more than 27,000 lives by distributing nearly 800,000 doses of naloxone.

The state has also stepped up spending on opioid treatment, prevention programs and peer services that rely on people who’ve personally struggled with addiction helping those in the throes of substance abuse.

Dr. Tom Jeanne, Oregon’s deputy state health officer, said that spending needs to continue.

“The sustained decline in overdose deaths is encouraging to see, but we still have a long way to go,” Jeanne said in a statement.

The Lund Report is a nonpartisan nonprofit news site focused on health care news in Oregon and southwest Washington. It emphasizes high-quality journalism that promotes awareness and understanding of pressing issues while holding government and industry accountable.