Glenn Youngkin made fentanyl one of his first fights as governor. Four years later, the evidence says it worked.

Fentanyl deaths in Virginia have fallen 59% since January 2022 — the month he took office. Between late 2023 and late 2024, the CDC ranked Virginia first in the nation for cutting overdose deaths.

Fentanyl deaths fell 44% in a single year — from 1,939 in 2023 to 1,086 in 2024. Across all drugs, fatal overdoses dropped 34%, the sharpest decline since the crisis peaked.

Fairfax saw it at home. Opioid overdose deaths in the county fell from 117 in 2023 to 56 last year — the fewest in a decade.

Each of those numbers was a son or a daughter. Sean Foster buried his 18-year-old. “A loss like this leaves a hole that is unfillable,” he told Fox 5. “Don’t assume that something like this can’t happen to your family.”

Fifty-six is still fifty-six too many. But it is sixty-one fewer than two years ago — sixty-one Fairfax families who did not get the call the Fosters got.

This Didn’t Happen on Its Own.

The drop followed a plan. Under Youngkin’s “Right Help, Right Now” initiative, Virginia put nearly 390,000 doses of naloxone into the field and trained almost 97,000 people to reverse an overdose in progress.

That is the antidote in a teacher’s desk, a parent’s glovebox, a first responder’s pocket — in the seconds that decide it.

On the supply side, Operation FREE seized more than 790 pounds of fentanyl — a street value near $3.9 billion — and made nearly 2,600 arrests. Demand met treatment; supply met handcuffs.

And First Lady Suzanne Youngkin’s “It Only Takes One” campaign carried the warning straight to parents and teachers — the message Sean Foster wishes he’d had sooner.

The Line Is Finally Bending the Right Way.

For most of a decade, that line only climbed. Under a governor who made it a mission and measured the results, it turned — faster in Virginia than anywhere else in America.

Youngkin left office in January. Fentanyl is still the deadliest drug in the county, and a falling line can climb again.

The playbook now belongs to the Democrats who run Richmond — the same majority that spent this year building a new retail market for a different drug.

Whether Virginia’s overdose numbers keep falling is their responsibility now. They answer for it in November 2027 — and the families who already got the call will be watching.