September 19th, 2024.

Yesterday morning, NPR reported that U.S. public health data are showing a dramatic drop in deaths from drug overdoses for the first time in decades.

Between April 2023 and April 2024, deaths from street drugs are down 10.6%, with some

researchers saying that when federal surveys are updated, the decline will be even more pronounced.

Such a decline would translate to 20,000 deaths averted.

With more than 70,000 Americans dying of opioid overdoses in 2020 and numbers rising,

the Biden Harris administration prioritized disrupting the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.

They worked to seize the drugs at ports of entry,

sanction more than 300 foreign people and agencies engaged in the global trade and illicit drugs, and arrested

and prosecuted dozens of high-level Mexican drug traffickers and money launderers.

In March 2023, the Biden Harris administration made Naloxone, a medicine that can prevent

fatal opioid overdoses available over the counter. The administration invested more than $82 billion in treatment

and the Department of Health and Human Services worked to get the treatment into the hands

of first responders and family members.

Addressing the crisis of opioid deaths meant careful coordinated policies.

Also today, markets all over the world climbed after the Fed yesterday cut interest rates

for the first time in four years. In the US, the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of 500 of the biggest companies

on the US stock exchanges, the NASDAQ composite, which is weighted toward the information technology sector and the Dow Jones

industrial average an older index that tracks 30 prominent companies

listed on US stock exchanges all hit new records. The rate cut indicated to traders that the

U.S. has in fact managed to pull off the soft landing President Joe Biden and

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen worked to achieve.

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