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Friday, Nov. 28, 2025

Did fentanyl and drug overdoses claim more lives in 2024 than the Vietnam War, as Sen. Mullin claimed?

Matthew Yim, Oklahoma Watch
no

Explanation:CDC data from January 2024 to January 2025 reports 79,000 drug overdose deaths, of which two-thirds were opioids such as fentanyl, far less than the 258,220 American, North Vietnamese, and Viet Cong combatant deaths during the Vietnam War, as conservatively estimated by the U.S. military.

A Population and Development Review study estimated a total of 882,000 Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, caused by the war during its last ten years. This number, which includes 84,000 children, brings the total Vietnamese and American death toll to 940,220.

This number is nearly 12 times the number of American drug overdose deaths in 2024.

The 58,220 American military casualties during the Vietnam War, however, is comparable to the 53,206 opioid overdose deaths in 2024.

Drug overdose deaths in 2024 decreased 25% from 2023, the year in which Oklahoma saw 1,325 such fatalities.

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