Overdose Deaths Are Plummeting in the U.S.

Sam Quinones, a journalist, is the author of five books, including “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic” and “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.” His latest, “The Perfect Tuba,” is a sequel to those books.

Last spring, I interviewed a Salt Lake City woman addicted to fentanyl, which came in illicit pills from Mexico. For a long time, she told me, the high levels of the drug in those pills kept her tolerance quite high, making any sort of treatment — and the withdrawal that would come with it — out of the question.

But in early 2024, a year before our conversation, the fentanyl supply started to change. The pills she purchased gradually weakened, until finally they no longer contained enough fentanyl to staunch her withdrawals. Eventually, she sought treatment.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.