2026-05-13T12:13:42-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
据美国政府初步数据显示，去年约有7万名美国人死于药物过量，较前一年减少约14%。
周三公布的联邦数据显示，这是过量用药死亡人数连续第三年下降，也是数十年来持续时间最长的一次下滑。2025年的总死亡人数与2019年新冠疫情暴发前的水平大致相当。
包括芬太尼、可卡因和甲基苯丙胺在内的多种毒品相关的过量用药死亡人数均出现下降。
美国疾病控制与预防中心的初步数据显示，全美绝大多数州的过量用药死亡人数都有所下降，但有7个州的死亡人数至少出现了小幅上升，其中亚利桑那州、科罗拉多州和新墨西哥州的增幅达到10%甚至更高。
“我持谨慎乐观态度，认为这标志着过量用药危机的发展轨迹出现了真正的根本性转变，”研究过量用药趋势的布朗大学研究员布兰登·马歇尔说道。
但美国人的过量用药死亡人数仍然居高不下，且去年的死亡人数下降速度有所放缓。马歇尔和其他研究人员表示，包括政府政策变动或毒品供应格局转变在内的诸多因素，都可能导致死亡人数再次上升。
“如果死亡人数能够快速下降，那么如果我们放松警惕，死亡人数也可能以同样快的速度反弹，”马歇尔说道。
疫情期间过量用药死亡人数上升
数十年来，美国的过量用药死亡人数总体呈上升趋势，但在新冠疫情期间大幅飙升，2022年达到近11万人的峰值。疫情期间的死亡人数激增与社会隔离以及难以获得成瘾治疗服务有关。
随着疫情缓解，死亡人数有所下降。研究人员指出了诸多可能的因素：过量用药逆转药物纳洛酮的可及性提高、成瘾治疗服务范围扩大、吸毒方式的转变，以及数十亿美元阿片类药物诉讼和解资金产生的日益显著的影响。
部分研究还表明，可能的过量用药人群数量一直在减少，因为青少年吸毒人数有所下降，且许多非法吸毒者已经死亡。另一种理论认为，中国几年前出台的监管规定似乎减少了制造芬太尼所需前体化学品的供应。
美国长达数十年的过量用药流行病在全国不同地区的发展速度各不相同，这至少部分是由于非法毒品供应和人们吸食毒品种类的差异。马歇尔猜测，亚利桑那州、科罗拉多州和新墨西哥州去年的死亡人数上升，可能与当地近期芬太尼和甲基苯丙胺的联合使用增多有关。
近几个月来，卫生和执法官员一直在对2025年检测到的越来越多的新型毒品发出警告。
美国毒品供应中不断出现新物质
亚历克斯·克罗图尔斯基是宾夕法尼亚州霍舍姆市法医科学研究与教育中心的主任，该中心是一家由联邦政府资助的毒理学实验室，也是全国非法毒品早期预警系统的重要组成部分。
他表示，该实验室在去年全年共识别出27种新毒品。而到2026年还不到五个月，实验室就已经识别出23种新毒品。
实验室重点关注的毒品包括环氯菲尼，这是一种强效合成阿片类药物，据称其效力是芬太尼的10倍。专家表示，这种药物被用作掺杂剂，在买家不知情的情况下被添加到其他非法毒品中。
“毒品供应持续变化和演变，”克罗图尔斯基说道。
动物镇静剂如甲苯噻嗪和美托咪定也出现在了毒品供应中。它们的致命性不如芬太尼等合成阿片类药物，但会抑制呼吸，导致使用者意外昏厥，还可能造成有害的副作用。例如，甲苯噻嗪会导致严重伤口，进而引发感染或组织坏死。
特朗普政府削减部分项目
与此同时，特朗普政府一直在削减旨在减少与吸毒相关的过量用药死亡和感染的项目。在上月的一封信中，美国药物滥用和精神健康服务管理局通知联邦拨款 recipients，政府将不再为检测试纸和试剂盒付费，这些工具可帮助吸毒者检测其毒品中是否含有芬太尼和甲苯噻嗪等致命添加剂。
肯塔基 harm Reduction Coalition 执行主任什里塔·沃尔登告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻，她的组织失去了一笔40万美元的拨款，这笔资金曾用于分发数万份芬太尼检测试纸。
“某一天某样东西还是基于证据的方案，却仅仅因为政治氛围就被判定不再符合循证标准，这毫无道理，”沃尔登说道。“如果他们遵循科学和数据，我们绝不会朝着这个方向前进。”
官员们表示，他们正在逐步取消旨在便利非法吸毒的服务，包括提供清洁注射器的项目，以及供吸毒者在吸毒时拨打的求助热线。这些热线的目的是在出现过量用药情况时确保能够及时呼叫应急服务。
白宫一份近200页的毒品战略计划显示，将采用废水检测等方法实时监测非法毒品使用情况，并利用人工智能搜寻走私物质或“识别过量用药高风险患者”。
“我们仍处于过量用药危机之中，”毒品政策联盟联邦政策主任玛丽察·佩雷斯·梅迪纳今年5月初对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻表示。“联邦资助削减，再加上剥夺帮助人们的切实工具……很可能会导致更多吸毒危害，包括过量用药死亡。”
Overdose deaths fall for 3rd straight year amid a changing drug supply and funding cuts
2026-05-13T12:13:42-0400 / CBS/AP
About 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year — about 14% fewer than the previous year, according to preliminary government data.
It was the third straight annual drop, making it the longest decline in decades, according to federal data released Wednesday. The 2025 total is about the same as the tally in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Declines were seen across a number of drug types, including fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.
Overdose deaths fell in the vast majority of states, although seven saw at least slight increases, including jumps of 10% or more in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, the preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that this represents really a fundamental change in the arc of the overdose crisis,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.
But the number of Americans dying from overdoses is still high, and deaths declined at a slower pace last year. A number of things could cause deaths to rise again — including government policy changes or a shift in the drug supply, Marshall and other researchers say.
“If deaths are going down rapidly, that means they can increase just as rapidly if we take our foot off the gas,” Marshall said.
Overdoses rose during the height of the pandemic
U.S. overdose deaths were generally rising for decades, but they shot up dramatically during the pandemic, peaking at nearly 110,000 in 2022. The pandemic spike was associated with social isolation and difficulties accessing addiction treatment.
Deaths declined as the pandemic waned. Researchers have pointed to numerous possible factors: an increase in the availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
Some research also suggests the number of people likely to overdose has been shrinking, as fewer teens take up drugs and many illicit drug users have died. Another theory suggests regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
The nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic has played out at different paces in different parts of the country, due at least in part to differences in the illicit drug supply and what people are using. The death increases last year in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico could stem from more combined use of fentanyl and methamphetamine recently in those places, Marshall guessed.
Health and law enforcement officials in recent months have been sounding alarms about newer drugs that were increasingly detected in 2025.
New substances are showing up in U.S. drug supply
Alex Krotulski is director of the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education, a federally funded toxicology lab in Horsham, Pennsylvania, that is an important part of a national illicit drug early warning system.
In all of last year, the lab identified 27 new drugs. Less than five months into 2026, the lab already has identified 23, he said.
Among the drugs on the lab’s radar is cychlorphine, a potent synthetic opioid described as up to 10 times stronger than fentanyl. Experts say it is being used as a cutting agent, added to other illicit drugs, without the buyer’s knowledge.
“The drug supply continues to change and evolve,” Krotulski said.
Veterinary sedatives like xylazine and medetomidine have also appeared in the drug supply. They are not as fatal as synthetic opioids like fentanyl, but they can depress breathing and make users black out unexpectedly. They can also cause damaging side effects. For example, xylazine can cause severe wounds that can become infected or necrotic.
A vial of xylazine. CBS News Detroit
Trump administration cuts some programs
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been cutting programs designed to reduce overdose deaths and infections tied to drug use. In a letter last month, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration notified federal grant recipients that the government would no longer pay for test strips and kits that help drug users see if their drugs contain highly lethal additives including fentanyl and xylazine.
Shreeta Waldon, the executive director of the Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, told CBS News that her organization lost a $400,000 grant that it used to distribute tens of thousands of fentanyl test strips.
“It doesn’t make sense that one day something is an evidence-based protocol, and you decide, because of political climate, it is no longer evidence-based,” Waldon said. “If they follow the science and the data, we would never move in this direction.”
Officials say they are shifting away from services that facilitate illicit drug use, including programs that provided clean syringes and hotlines that people can dial into while they use drugs. The purpose of these hotlines is to ensure emergency services can be called in case of an overdose.
A fentanyl test strip. Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A nearly 200-page drug strategy plan from the White House suggests using methods like wastewater testing to try to determine illegal drug use in real time, and using AI to search for smuggled substances or “identify patients at high risk of overdose.”
“We’re still in the midst of the overdose crisis,” Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, told CBS News earlier in May. “Federal funding cuts, coupled with taking away the real tools to help people … could very well lead to more drug use harms, including overdose.”
