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Ohio drug overdose deaths are down, but the state efforts are ‘far from over’

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — Unintentional drug overdose deaths are still officially on the decline statewide, Gov. Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Health said Wednesday.

Gov. Mike DeWine at a news conference detailing overdose deaths statewide
Gov. Mike DeWine at a news conference detailing overdose deaths statewide on Oct. 30, 2024. [Sarah Donaldson | Statehouse News Bureau]
After a 5% year-over-year decrease in 2022, Ohio recorded a 9% decrease in 2023, finalized department of health data showed. That substantiates Center for Disease Control preliminary data indicating a pronounced decline in overdose deaths throughout the state—one that seemed to be the first significant fall since 2018.

DeWine said at an afternoon press conference he credits the progress to the state’s strategy for addressing the addiction and overdose crisis, which combines intervention, treatment and enforcement programs. For instance, the department of health distributed 291,000 naloxone kits last year it said contributed to more than 20,000 known overdose reversals.

For a state that saw the second-highest percentage of deaths nationwide for a time in the 2010s, DeWine said Wednesday the finalized data gives reason to celebrate. Still, 4,452 Ohioans died of a drug overdose last year, more than 12 a day.

“We owe it to every Ohio family, every person struggling with addiction to continue this battle and continue to do the things that we are doing and continue to look forward, to saving more lives,” DeWine said.

The preliminary data indicates the trend gaining momentum in 2024, DeWine said.

Dennis Cauchon, the founder and president of Harm Reduction Ohio, pulls mortality data almost daily. For nearly seven years, Cauchon said he’s been tracking the provisional data to get a picture of the state’s drug overdose deaths. He thought at first the downward trend was because of a methodology change.

By early 2024, when that line still arched downward, Cauchon said last month the data was showing him what he wanted to see. Historically, he said he’s seen incremental changes, but these changes did not look incremental.

“When I realized it wasn’t a quirk, it made me cry, because every one of these deaths is a story with children and loved ones,” Cauchon said in an interview. “They’re all stories to me. They’re not just numbers.”

There is a monthslong lag between when the department of health first forwards death certificates to the CDC and when it verifies its mortality database for the year, which is why 2024 numbers won’t be finalized until next fall. The 2023 numbers are available here.