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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Trump Again Overstates Number of Drug Overdose Deaths in U.S.

Trump Again Overstates Number of Drug Overdose Deaths in U.S.

Reviving an unfounded claim he has made for several years, President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 overstated the number of Americans who died in 2024 of drug overdoses, saying that he believed 300,000 or “350,000 people died last year from drugs.” A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us the provisional number of drug overdose deaths in 2024 was 79,383, and an expert in addiction medicine told us Trump’s number was “a gross exaggeration.”