Trump drastically inflates annual fentanyl death numbers

Former President Donald Trump said at a recent campaign rally that more than 300,000 Americans are dying each year from the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, and that the number of fentanyl overdoses was the “lowest” during his administration and has skyrocketed since.
“We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border,” Trump told his supporters at a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been,” he said.
Trump’s figures appear to have no basis in fact. Government statistics show the number of drug overdose deaths per year is hovering around 100,000 to 110,000, with opioid-related deaths at about 81,000. That’s enough that the government has labeled opioid-related overdoses an “epidemic,” but nowhere close to the number Trump cited.
Moreover, though the number of opioid deaths has risen since Trump left office, it’s incorrect to say they were the “lowest” while he was president.
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Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t comment specifically on the source for Trump’s statistics. She instead sent KFF Health News an email with several bullet points about the opioid crisis under the heading: “DRUGS ARE POURING OVER HARRIS’ OPEN BORDER INTO OUR COMMUNITIES.”
One such bullet noted that there were “112,000 fatal drug overdoses” last year and linked to a story from NPR reporting that fact — directly rebutting Trump’s own statement of 300,000 fentanyl deaths. Additionally, the number NPR reported is an overall figure, not for fentanyl-related deaths only.
More recent government figures estimated that there were 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023, with an estimated 74,702 of those involving fentanyl. Those figures were in line with what experts on the topic told KFF Health News.
“The number of actual deaths is probably significantly higher,” said Andrew Kolodny, medical director for the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, noting that many such overdose deaths go uncounted by government researchers.
“But I don’t know where one would get that number of 300,000,” Kolodny added.
Trump’s statement that fentanyl deaths were the “lowest” during his administration and are now worse than ever is also off the mark.
Overdose deaths — specifically those from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl — started climbing in the 1990s. When Trump took office in January 2017, the number of overdose deaths related to synthetic opioids was about 21,000. By January 2021, when he left the White House, that tally was nearing 60,000, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System shows. Deaths involving synthetic opioids continued to increase after Trump left office.
“There’s some truth to saying that there are more Americans dying (of opioids) than ever before,” Kolodny said. “But again, if you were to look at trends during the Trump administration, deaths just pretty much kept getting worse.”
In the last year, though, statistics show that overdose numbers have plateaued or fallen slightly, though it’s too soon to say whether that trend will hold.
Given that Trump’s statements about fentanyl came when discussing the southern border “invasion,” it’s worth noting that, according to the U.S. government, the vast majority of fentanyl caught being smuggled into the country illegally comes via legal ports of entry. Moreover, nearly 90% of people convicted of fentanyl drug trafficking in 2022 were U.S. citizens, an analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, showed. That year, U.S. citizens received 12 times as many fentanyl trafficking convictions as did immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally, the analysis showed.
Trump said, “We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border. We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been.”
Annual U.S. fentanyl deaths have increased since he left office, but Trump’s statement about 300,000 deaths has no basis in fact and is contradicted by figures his press secretary shared.
Trump is wrong to assert that overdoses were the lowest when he was president. Moreover, Trump continues to link fentanyl trafficking to illegal immigration — a statement statistics do not support.
We rate Trump’s statement Pants on Fire!
By Jacob Gardenswartz, KFF Health News contributor