Fatal drug overdoses dropped 30% in KY last year. But federal Narcan cuts loom
A proposed budget from President Donald Trump’s administration threatens to cut significant funding to a critical resource that’s saved the lives of thousands of Kentuckians.
A $56 million federal grant awarded annually for distributing and training people to use the opioid overdose reversal medication Narcan is excluded from a draft budget released this month, according to the New York Times.
The announcement came just days before Kentucky officials announced Thursday the state’s drug overdose deaths fell for the third year in a row in 2024 — this time by 30% from one year earlier, according to the Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report.
That decrease was a significant jump from 2023, when overdose deaths decreased by 10%.
Still, 1,410 Kentuckians died of drug overdoses last year. Kentucky officials credit Narcan for a large portion of the recent decrease, and they say Trump’s draft budget sends a dangerous message to those living with addiction and their advocates.
“The message says the lives of people who use drugs are disposable,” Shreeta Waldon, director of the Louisville-based Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, said in an interview with the Herald-Leader. “As someone who does this work on the ground and has worked over a decade in harm reduction, I have seen firsthand how Narcan has brought people back to life.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement this week that he, too, witnessed Narcan save a life during a visit to Lexington.
“The job of government is to serve the people. We can’t do that if this critical funding is cut,” Beshear said in a statement. “We should all be working to help people overcome addiction and save more lives.”
Narcan by the numbers
Trump’s budget proposal outlines reorganization and significant shrinking of the Department of Health and Human Services, including cutting the Narcan grant funding.
Narcan, a brand name for the drug naloxone, is a medication administered through the nasal cavity and can reverse the effects of opioids such as heroin and fentanyl.
About 170,000 doses of Narcan were distributed in Kentucky last year, according to the Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report.
Fentanyl, a highly addictive and lethal opioid, was present in more than 62% of overdose deaths last year.
The draft budget is only a proposal, and it is not guaranteed to come to fruition. Trump’s final budget must be passed by the U.S. House and Senate.
And even if the proposed budget is passed, state and local governments have other means to tap into federal funding for Narcan and other addiction services.
Still, the potential cuts worry industry advocates.
Narcan has no psychedelic effect, and it’s been widely praised for helping reduce the fatal effects of the drug epidemic that hit areas of Appalachia especially hard. It also has no harmful effects if it’s used on someone who is not overdosing.
Narcan became more widely available to law enforcement and the wider public in 2020, as overdose deaths reached their highest rates nationwide.
And while Kentucky has seen fewer fatal overdoses than in years past, it remains among the five worst states in the U.S. for overdose death rates.
The most recent data from the Center for Disease Control shows Kentucky’s overdose death rate at 53.2 per 100,000. In 2020, the national rate of overdose deaths was 28.3 per 100,000.
Narcan use in Kentucky
The Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, founded in 2011, works to distribute Narcan and fentanyl test strips, connect with resources and education on mental and physical health.
The program has distributed nearly 115,000 doses of Narcan statewide since its founding, including 18,000 last year alone.
Just last year, the program distributed 18,000 doses of Narcan.
Waldon, the program director, encouraged people who have used the medicine to speak out about how it saved lives.
“It is not just about budget,” she said. “It’s about whether we are choosing compassion over punishment and death.”
Through the federal grant excluded from Trump’s draft budget, 68 rural Kentucky counties distributed Narcan to first responders and trained them on how to use it last year, said Joy Girgis, an associate with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
“Kentucky has seen overdose deaths fall in recent years, but budget cuts that limit the availability of life-saving interventions like Narcan threaten to reverse that trend,” Girgis said. “Cuts to funding for programs like these would add to the challenges communities experience with overdose prevention related to economic disadvantage, long distances from treatment centers, and social stigma.”
Other cuts that threaten harm reduction in Kentucky
It’s not just the federal Narcan grant at risk of being cut in Kentucky.
Crystal Staley, spokesperson for Beshear’s office, said last month Kentucky could lose $148.8 million if the Trump administration succeeds at cutting $11 billion in federal funding for COVID-19-era health services.
Trump announced plans to cut the funds in March, but several states, including Kentucky, sued to stop him.
The money, approved during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was used to track and immunize against infectious diseases.
But it also paid for mental health and substance abuse services.
Kentucky officials argue those funds remain crucial as the state’s overdose mortality rates improve but remain among the highest in the U.S.
And Trump has also signaled support for Medicaid cuts that would prohibit the federally funded health care program from paying for addiction treatment.
That would result in a loss of more than $800 million in funding to help treat substance use disorders, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy said Medicaid is the backbone of the state’s health care, but it is also the largest investment in treatment. Kentucky ranks fifth-highest in the country for the rate of Medicaid recipients with addiction.
Without Medicaid coverage, supplies would be disrupted for about 70% of Kentuckians who receive medication to treat opioid use disorder, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
