The number of fatal drug overdoses in Maine fell significantly in 2025, officials announced Monday afternoon, continuing a downward trend both here and across the country.
Maine saw 390 overdose deaths in 2025, according to data released this week by the Mills administration, a decrease of 20% from 2024. It was the third consecutive year of decline and the first time fatal overdoses have fallen below 400 since 2019. Nonfatal overdoses also dropped by 9% last year.
After increasing for over a decade, fatal overdoses in Maine reached a record in 2022 when more than 700 people died.
State officials say the multiyear downward trend is being driven by Maine’s harm reduction efforts, including wider distribution of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and expanding recovery and treatment options.
“We must continue doing all we can to prevent people from using drugs and ensure that those who need treatment can get it to maintain this momentum across Maine’s cities and towns,” Gordon Smith, director of the state’s opioid response, said in a statement.
The latest report found that fentanyl caused more than half of Maine’s fatal overdoses last year, down from 70% the prior year. Smith and other officials cited the declining prevalence of fentanyl in street drugs as a contributing factor to the decline in overdoses.
Overdose deaths have been falling across the country since the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have not pinpointed a single cause for the decline, but have suggested expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs and the impact of opioid lawsuit settlement funds are playing a role.
Maine is set to receive $230 million in the coming decades from pharmaceutical companies who settled years of litigation alleging drug manufacturers, distributors and retailers fueled the nationwide opioid epidemic. Those funds are to be split between local governments, the Maine Recovery Council, and the state attorney general’s office.
At least $14 million of that money has been doled out to dozens of projects across the state, ranging from the construction of new treatment and recovery centers to needle exchange programs.
“This milestone provides critical confirmation that the work we are doing at present — whether it’s the naloxone distribution, the expenditures for low-barrier shelters and treatment programming, educating medical providers, supporting law enforcement, all of our hard work — is saving lives,” Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement Monday.
