The number of overdose deaths in Kentucky last year dropped by 30.2% — down to 1,410 lives lost — giving state leaders a surge of confidence that prevention and treatment efforts are making progress against an addiction epidemic they say is shattering families across the state.
This was the third straight yearly decrease in drug overdose deaths for the state, although prior declines were substantially smaller. Kentucky has long been plagued by high rates of addiction to opioid painkillers, and fatal overdoses surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when treatment was hard to get and people were socially isolated.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who announced the latest overdose statistics on Thursday, called the results a “watershed moment” reflecting years of painstaking work to combat the spread and use of drugs.
“This is what we have been hoping for and praying for,” Beshear said. “What we’re seeing here ought to give everyone who’s worked so hard to get to this point … hope that we can do even more.”
State Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, said Kentuckians should “rejoice in every life saved from this scourge,” but warned that powerful illicit drugs like fentanyl continue to pose a threat.
“As little as one pill can and is killing our sons and daughters,” Coleman said in a statement.
Fentanyl and methamphetamine continued to be the most prevalent drugs contributing to overdose deaths in Kentucky.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has steered huge sums of federal funding to his home state to combat its addiction woes, said he was encouraged by the gains in combating the drug crisis, from stemming the flow of illicit drugs to offering treatment services in communities.
“I’ve always worked to keep Kentucky at the forefront of our national response to the drug crisis,” McConnell said in a statement. “We are finally making progress in restoring the Southern Border, but there’s still a lot of work left to do in the commonwealth to help those struggling with addiction.”
Kentucky’s drop reflected broader gains achieved in the U.S. There were about 97,000 U.S. overdose deaths in the 12 months that ended last June 30, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was down 14% from the estimated 113,000 for the prior 12-month period.
Overdose death rates nationwide began steadily climbing in the 1990s because of opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and more recently fentanyl.
Beshear, seen as a potential candidate for the White House in 2028, said plenty of groups were deserving of credit for Kentucky’s big decline in overdose deaths. He praised law enforcement efforts to remove dangerous drugs from circulation and the work of addiction treatment centers and other recovery services. And he credited those Kentuckians battling addiction who reached out for help.
“Whether it’s your first, fifth or 10th attempt, we want to stand behind you,” the governor said. “We want to provide you the best help that we can.”
Other factors, he said, include the distribution of Narcan, which can reverse overdoses of opioids, as well as the availability of addiction services through Medicaid and the work of syringe exchange programs.
“Regardless of what the politics say, syringe exchange programs work,” Beshear said. “They help us get to know people and they help us to save lives.”
Meanwhile, Coleman has rolled out a youth-focused initiative aimed at keeping young people away from deadly substances.
With all those efforts, the challenge now is to continue driving down fatal overdoses, Beshear said.
“It ought to tell us that an epidemic that arose in our time, we should be able to defeat in our time,” the governor said.