evidence: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Vital Statistics System has released a report showing West Virginia is one of six states with an improvement in decreasing the percentage of overdose deaths from March 2021 through March 2022. CDC reports that West Virginia is down 3.63% in overdose deaths during this period. The only other state showing a better improvement is Virginia at 6.69%. "West Virginia is starting to plateau and likely seeing a slight downward trend," said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP), West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). "We are encouraged by CDC’s data and will continue our efforts to end West Virginia’s substance use epidemic." [...] "In 2021, a number of measures were implemented to address the overdose epidemic under the direction of Gov. Jim Justice," added Dr. Christiansen.