Open correction. The CDC National Center for Health Statistics provisional release of May 13 estimates 2025 U.S. drug overdose deaths at 69,973, down 13.9 percent from 81,313 in 2024 — the third consecutive year of decline and the steepest single-year drop the federal series has recorded in roughly a generation. Opioid-involved deaths fell from 55,296 to 44,564 over the same twelve months. Five states (Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, Alabama, Vermont) saw declines of twenty-five percent or more; three (New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado) rose ten percent or more. [1]

The paper's Saturday brief at "68,632" inherited the wrong number from the Hill's mid-month intermediate read. The NCHS provisional total is 69,973. Sunday runs the correction in body prose, not a box-out. The shape of the year is unchanged — third consecutive decline, opioid sub-set falling faster than the headline, three state increases against a national fall — but the headline figure the paper printed was off by 1,341. [2]

The plain-English Memorial Day version: fewer Americans died from overdoses in 2025 than in any year since 2019, and the decline is large enough that the academic literature has stopped calling it a wobble and started calling it structural. The next variable that could reverse it is policy, not chemistry — Medicaid cuts, SAMHSA grant terminations, and the "Weapon of Mass Destruction" fentanyl designation are the levers KFF's December tracker named. The naloxone over the counter at the corner pharmacy remains the household answer the federal figure does not yet count. The number that moved this weekend is the one in this brief. [3]

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago