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This is On Point. I'm Deborah Becker.

The staggering drug overdose death rate in the U.S. has dramatically dropped, according to the latest federal statistics. Some say it's the most significant decline in overdose deaths recorded this century. But what seems like good news is also ambiguous.

According to some drug experts, the decrease could be attributed to better access to treatment and addiction medication, such as methadone, and long-lasting buprenorphine.

That's according to Brad Feinggood, who works on overdose prevention for Seattle King County Public Health.

Access to methadone has expanded.

Access to buprenorphine has expanded.

We are starting to deploy long-acting buprenorphine shots so people can get a shot of buprenorphine

and it lasts for a month.

And people really seem willing to do it.

In King County, we also are standing up walking behavioral health crisis centers

where people can just walk right in. For a long time, detox was the front door. But if people

can walk into a place, get care, and get access to medication on demand without barriers,

then that gives me a lot of hope. Fine Good also says the overdose reversal drug naloxone has helped reduce deaths.

His department distributed 90,000 naloxone kits in the first nine months of this year.

While it's likely that myriad reasons are behind the decline in the overdose death rate,

most public health experts say it's not yet time to think that we're making our way out of the ravages of a more than decade-long opioid epidemic that's killed more than a million Americans.

Joining us first to talk about this is Keith Humphreys.

He's a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University where he studies addiction.

Welcome to On Point, Keith.

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