Los Angeles Fentanyl Overdoses: What the Latest County Data Shows

By Markie Bryant, Director of Marketing | Reviewed by Dr. Siri Sat Khalsa, MD, Medical Director, AM Health Care · Updated August 5, 2026

For years, the story of fentanyl in Los Angeles was a story about a line going up. Between 2016 and 2023, fentanyl-related deaths in LA County rose roughly 1,700% — from 109 deaths to more than 2,000 a year — and at the height of the crisis, fentanyl was involved in nearly two of every three accidental overdose deaths in the county. That’s the era the internet still mostly describes. But the County’s most recent data tells a different, more complicated story: deaths are finally falling — and fentanyl still kills more Angelenos than any other drug.

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The Turning Point in the Data

According to the LA County Department of Public Health’s overdose data reports, accidental drug overdose and poisoning deaths peaked at an all-time high of 3,220 in 2022. Then the line bent. Deaths fell 22% in 2024 to 2,438 — the county’s largest recorded single-year decline — and fell again in 2025 to 2,298, a nearly 30% total reduction from the peak.

Fentanyl specifically has fallen faster than overdoses overall:

• 2024 saw 1,263 fentanyl-related deaths — down 37% from 2023, the first decline since the county began routinely testing for fentanyl.
• 2025 brought a further 10% reduction, putting fentanyl deaths more than 40% below the 2022 peak.
• Even so, fentanyl was still involved in about half of all accidental overdose deaths (52% in 2024, down from 64% in 2023) — it remains the county’s number-one overdose killer.

Why Deaths Are Falling

The decline didn’t happen on its own. LA County dramatically scaled up its response: naloxone (Narcan) distribution grew tenfold, from roughly 48,000 doses in 2020 to nearly 480,000 in 2024, alongside more than a million doses and 100,000 fentanyl test strips distributed since 2019. County public health officials credit these harm-reduction and treatment investments with preventing at least 35,000 overdoses. The lesson inside the numbers: overdose deaths respond to access — to naloxone, to test strips, and to treatment.

Who Is Still Most at Risk

A falling countywide number doesn’t mean falling risk for everyone. The same County reports show the burden remains heavily concentrated:

• Men account for roughly three-quarters of overdose deaths — about four male deaths for every female death from fentanyl.
• Black residents make up about 19% of fentanyl deaths despite being roughly 8% of the county’s population, with death rates four times higher in high-poverty neighborhoods.
• Adults 26–39 face the highest fentanyl-specific risk, while deaths among adults 65 and older actually rose 14% in 2025 even as every other group improved.
• Overdose remains the leading cause of death among unhoused Angelenos.

Why Fentanyl Remains So Dangerous

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid roughly 50 times stronger than heroin, and it is rarely sold as itself. It shows up pressed into counterfeit pills and mixed into other street drugs, which means people regularly take it without knowing — at doses no one can eyeball. That’s what makes ‘just once’ genuinely dangerous, and it’s why the county pushes test strips and naloxone so hard: the margin between a high and a lethal dose is measured in milligrams.

Getting Help for Fentanyl Addiction in Los Angeles

The most important number in all this data is the one it implies: every death prevented started with someone getting naloxone, treatment, or both in time. If you or someone you love is using fentanyl — or using anything that might contain it — AM Health Care provides medically supervised detox and a full continuum of fentanyl addiction treatment across our Los Angeles-area facilities, from residential care through outpatient support. Recovery from opioid addiction is a medical process with a known path, and it works. The county’s own numbers prove that when help reaches people, the line goes down.

How many people die from fentanyl in Los Angeles?

In 2024, LA County recorded 1,263 fentanyl-related deaths, and 2025 declined another 10% — down from more than 2,000 a year at the crisis peak. Fentanyl is still involved in about half of the county’s accidental overdose deaths.

Is the fentanyl crisis in LA getting better?

The data says yes — overall overdose deaths have fallen nearly 30% from the 2022 peak, driven by naloxone distribution, test strips, and expanded treatment. But ‘better’ is relative: fentanyl remains LA County’s leading cause of accidental overdose death, and risk is still concentrated among men, Black residents in high-poverty areas, and the unhoused.