Overdose deaths have decreased in Vermont for the second year in a row, but Vermont Commissioner of Health Mark Levine isn’t yet convinced the Green Mountain State is over the hump of the drug crisis that has claimed hundreds of lives since 2019.

“We’re not out of the woods,” Levine told the Burlington Free Press in an email. “The crisis is always evolving.”

After five years of drastic increases, Vermont saw overdose deaths decline 5% year-over-year in 2023 . This year, Vermont overdose fatalities that occurred in January through June fell a whopping 22% when compared to the same period in 2023, according to recent national data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention .

It takes time to confirm a trend

While Levine said he is “cautiously optimistic about what we’re seeing,” he noted it takes a minimum of three years for the Vermont Department of Health to discern whether a trend – such as a decrease in overdose deaths – is truly occurring in public health data.

This is partially because deaths fluctuate month-to-month. For instance, Vermont reported 24 known opioid-related deaths in June 2024, which is a significant jump from the three-year average of 18 during that month.

“This is an important reminder that these numbers are dynamic and subject to many factors,” Levine said.

For a more accurate short-term picture, the Department of Health compares an individual year’s number of deaths to the three-year average. In this case, overdose deaths declined 16% this year in Vermont, less than the year-over-year rate of 22%.

Levine emphasized that even though deaths have decreased over the past two years, twice as many Vermonters are still dying from overdoses than before the pandemic.

“The decline we’re seeing now, which we all hope our work will help continue, is coming down from a peak that nobody had imagined.”

Why are overdose deaths trending downwards?

Levine said it’s “too early” to know for sure why overdose fatalities are seeming to decline, but he listed a few theories, such as society’s budding recovery from the pandemic.

The pandemic years “had long-lasting effects such as disruptions to usual drug supply chains, increased social isolation, and increased rates of using alone,” Levine wrote.

Levine also pointed to several actions Vermont has taken as potential reasons for the decrease. The Green Mountain State, for instance, boasts the highest per capita rate of people receiving treatment for opioid use disorder.

Levine also lauded Vermont’s application of harm reduction strategies, such as identifying and supplying at-risk populations, like construction industry employees, with Narcan to reverse overdoses. To increase public access to the life-saving medicine, the state is considering adopting Narcan vending machines as a strategy.

“We are regularly reviewing data to see where we need to focus efforts and follow evidence-based approaches in our work,” Levine wrote.