“From about 1980 to 2022, the number of fatal overdoses from all drugs went up about 20-fold,” said Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland drug policy researcher who co-authored the paper. “And then in June, July of 2023, suddenly the curve turns down. There was clearly some systematic event that drove it down over the next two years by at least one-third.” That event, according to Reuter and his colleagues, was a sudden drop in fentanyl potency, leading to a surge in online mentions of terms like “drought” as well as a decline in overall fentanyl seizures by law enforcement. (Sources: statnews.com, science.org)