Fentanyl deaths are dropping in Buncombe County — and across the country. But why? • Asheville Watchdog

Fentanyl deaths are dropping in Buncombe County — and across the country. But why? • Asheville Watchdog

For months, public health experts have been monitoring a trend equal parts promising and perplexing: a steep decline in deaths associated with fentanyl, the opioid that for years has driven America’s overdose crisis. The decrease has been dramatic in Buncombe County, which by many metrics has been ravaged even more severely by fentanyl than North Carolina’s other most populous counties. Fentanyl-positive deaths — those in which the drug appeared…