the lowest number recorded since 2019, the county Department of Public Health reported.

“Let’s celebrate the progress. There is also a lot of work ahead,” summed up Tsai in a webinar briefing.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. It’s manufactured on the cheap and sold on the street or online, masquerading as the real thing. A single pill can pack enough fentanyl to kill.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 107,622 Americans died of drug poisonings in 2021 and of those, 66% were related to synthetic opioids, including fentanyl.

The fentanyl crisis actually began peaking in 2020 during the pandemic, and was killing substance abusers on the streets of L.A. County. Tsai said those who take illegal drugs are the most vulnerable to fentanyl-related deaths. The majority of overdose deaths in 2024 are males between the ages of 40 and 64, he said.

Black residents are dying at higher rates than Whites and other ethnic groups.

“The decline in overdose deaths in L.A. County is a clear sign that public health investments are saving lives,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said in a statement. “However, despite this encouraging trend, Black residents and individuals living in poverty continue to face disproportionately high rates of overdose deaths. This underscores the urgent need for continued investments in equitable public health strategies, especially those led by and in partnership with trusted community organizations.”

The drop in overdose deaths in 2024 is being attributed to prevention and drug treatment programs, as well as the distribution of fentanyl detection kits and the overdose-reversing drug, naloxone, supplied under the brand name Narcan, distributed to county libraries, schools, substance abuse clinics and first responders, Tsai said.

Education is particularly critical in the case of teenagers and young adults. The second highest group who are dying from drug overdoses or poisonings are between the ages of 26-39.

The powerful drug also results in accidental poisonings of teenagers and adults in their 20s who ordered OxyContin or ecstasy through social media sites and learned after it was too late these pills had been tainted with fentanyl. In L.A. County, the overdose rate for young people more than doubled from 2020 to 2022, mostly due to the spread of fentanyl.

Unintentional opioid deaths specifically due to fentanyl rose from 31 in 2014 to 255 in 2018, according to the county Department of Health Services. In the county, the synthetic opioid was responsible for 1,504 fatal overdoses in 2021, a 1,280% increase from 109 overdoses in 2016.

In San Bernardino County, the number of fentanyl overdose deaths increased tenfold from 2018 to 2021, the county’s health department reported.

Jaime Puerta of Santa Clarita lost his son Daniel, 16, who swallowed a fake pill that contained fentanyl. Puerta’s son ordered the pill from a drug dealer advertising on SnapChat, a popular site among young people. On this and other internet sites, drugs are pedaled under fake names. Kids think they are buying less potent drugs such as Percocet, Xanax, OxyContin and Vicodin but are actually getting fentanyl, said Puerta, who started the group Victims of Elicit Drugs.

“I know they say 37% reduction, and they should be happy it (deaths) are going down. But it is no cause to pat yourself on the back since we are still losing children,” Puerta said on Wednesday.

Puerta spoke to 15,000 junior high and high school students in the last quarter of 2024 about the dangers of buying drugs on the internet. Many tell him they never knew that recreational drugs that get you high may contain fentanyl that can cause death.

“Parents have given up on parenting,” he said. “They should not be afraid to talk to their children about this.”

Puerta also recently testified in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in support of a new bill that would round up more fentanyl and related ingredients, and increase prison sentences for smugglers coming through the U.S. borders.

Reducing fentanyl deaths among young people takes more distribution of naloxone and education of teens, young adults and their parents.

He said 100% of pills sold through SnapChat, Instagram and other social media sites are counterfeit pills, often containing fentanyl. “These are made by the drug cartels and some are made here in the United States,” he said.

Tsai agreed that naloxone, often made in the form of the brand Narcan, in more places and even available for purchase at some L.A. County libraries, is a powerful tool.

“One of the best tools we have is Narcan,” Tsai said. “And we’ve been able to scale across multi-sectors, including schools, police officers, mental and physical health clinics and libraries. Naloxone is contributing to the reduction in fentanyl overdoses.”

Education, combined with more treatment beds for substance abusers, are part of a multi-pronged approach. But funding for some of these programs is dependent on the federal government, money that the Trump Administration and Congress could curtail.

“This new data shows these efforts are working, but this progress is threatened by the steep cuts we are seeing in federal funding. The money we get from the federal government is more than a line item — it is life saving,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement.

Nonetheless, Tsai says the county will continue treatment and outreach programs, but said much of that is done through Medicaid, which President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will severely cut.

“Now is the time to continue use of prevention programs,” Tsai said. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas.”