Drug overdoses drop in the United States for the first time in decades

Fatal overdoses in the United States fell 5.1% in 2018, according to preliminary official data released Wednesday, the first decline in two decades.

The trend was due to a sharp drop in the number of deaths related to prescription pain medications.

"The latest provisional data on overdose deaths show that united efforts of the United States to combat opioid use disorder and addiction work," said the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, while warning that the epidemic would not be cured overnight.

The estimated total number of deaths fell to 68,557 in 2018 from 72,224 the previous year, according to figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But this number is still much higher than the 16,849 overdose deaths in 1999, which has increased every year until 2017, with a particularly strong increase observed from 2014 to 2017.

Deaths attributed to natural and semi-synthetic opioids, such as morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and oxymorphone, prescribed as painkillers, have experienced a decrease from 14,926 to 12,757, or 14.5%.

This is the largest decline for all drug categories, although synthetic opioid-related deaths, with the exception of methadone (drugs such as tramadol and fentanyl), continued to increase sharply, while cocaine-related deaths also increased slightly.

The epidemic of opioids in the United States is rooted in decades of excessive prescription of addictive painkillers.

The crisis is responsible for about 400,000 deaths involving prescription or illicit opioids, including high-profile victims such as Prince pop icon and rocker Tom Petty. But there are signs that the tide is starting to turn. In recent months, federal authorities and states have filed lawsuits against drug giants for allegedly bribing doctors for prescribing their medications or for misleading marketing that minimizes the risks of addiction.

The overall prescription rate for opioids peaked in 2012 at 81 prescriptions per 100 Americans and had dropped to 58 in 2017, according to data suggesting that health care providers have become more cautious.

But the amount of opioids prescribed per person is still about three times higher than in 1999, according to the CDC, which uses a unit called morphine milligram equivalent (MME) to account for differences in type and drug concentration.