Los Angeles naloxone program saves 96% of overdose patients, data show

Los Angeles County spends millions each year on overdose prevention, and its fire department data show why: 24,503 of 25,461 patients who received naloxone doses since 2022 survived their overdose, a survival rate of about 96 percent.

That figure lands in the middle of a fierce political argument over naloxone, with critics saying the drug enables addiction and supporters pointing to the county’s own numbers. Los Angeles County Public Health reported a 22 percent decline in drug-related overdose deaths and poisonings in 2024, with fatalities falling from 3,137 in 2023 to 2,438. Fentanyl-related deaths dropped 37 percent last year, even though fentanyl remained the leading drug type listed as a cause of death after surpassing methamphetamine in 2022.

County officials have paired the overdose response with a wider public health strategy. The Department of Public Health says its Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution program is designed to teach people at risk of overdose, and those close to them, how to prevent, recognize and respond to overdose using naloxone. Public health officials also describe harm reduction as an evidence-based approach, saying research shows clear reductions in overdose deaths and infections when these services are available in a community.

The money has followed that strategy. In 2024, Los Angeles County said it increased investments in substance use prevention by more than 260 percent, treatment by 275 percent and harm reduction by 500 percent. In May 2025, county officials launched 51 Community Health Stations, self-serve vending machines that dispense free naloxone, fentanyl test strips, condoms and COVID-19 self-tests, with plans to reach 100 stations countywide. The Los Angeles County Library system also hosted Narcan clinics in 2024, after expanding free naloxone clinics with public health in 2023.

The city has moved too. In April 2025, the Los Angeles City Council advanced a naloxone pilot for South Los Angeles, backed by an opioid settlement expected to bring the city between $29.6 million and $53.3 million over 18 years. Statewide, California’s Naloxone Distribution Project says it has handed out more than 8.5 million kits since October 2018, and those kits have reversed more than 438,600 overdoses. With close to 8,000 Californians dying from opioid-related overdoses in 2023, the case for expanding overdose-response programs rests less on rhetoric than on a simple question of survival, and Los Angeles County’s numbers answer it plainly.