Knox County ended 2025 with 272 suspected overdose deaths, a grim number that still represents progress. The total continues a four-year slide in suspected fatal overdoses and ranks among the lowest full-year counts since the district attorney began publishing a live public dashboard in 2017. The tally is still provisional, with medical examiner rulings and toxicology results pending, but it marks a clear break from the worst years earlier in the decade.
The figure comes from the Knox County District Attorney General’s online “Suspected Overdose Death Dashboard,” which currently lists 272 suspected deaths for 2025 and tags February as the deadliest month, according to the district attorney’s dashboard. The site shows suspected overdose deaths logged on more than 200 days during the year, with Feb. 8, Sept. 23, and Dec. 24 tied for the highest single-day counts. It also ranks 2025 as the second-lowest full-year total since the dashboard launched in 2017 and repeatedly notes that all figures are preliminary and adjusted as investigations and lab work wrap up.
Local TV coverage first spotlighted the final county tally as “more than 250” and walked residents through how the year closed. WATE reported the 2025 totals alongside a year-to-date snapshot at the end of January and highlighted that Knox County’s suspected overdose deaths have declined each year since a spike in 2022. In that report, public-safety officials credited a mix of enforcement work and outreach for nudging the numbers down. The WATE coverage relied on the DA’s dashboard for both its counts and broader context.
National trend offers context
Knox County’s downward drift lines up with the broader national picture. Federal provisional data show that overdose deaths fell in much of the country through 2025, with declines reported in 45 states and an estimated 73,000 overdose deaths nationwide in the 12 months ending August 2025, according to AP. Public-health experts have pointed to wider access to naloxone, expanded treatment options, and shifts in the illicit drug supply as possible reasons for the drop. Local officials warn that, even with year-over-year improvement, overdose deaths remain significantly higher than before the pandemic.
Why county officials think the numbers moved
On the ground in Knox County, prosecutors, the Regional Forensic Center, and community organizations cite a mix of strategy and street-level work as likely drivers of the decline: targeted drug seizures, more naloxone in more hands, and stepped-up outreach. Reporting from WVLT noted forensic center data showing fentanyl and its analogues turning up in fewer recent cases. Law-enforcement officials in that coverage described drug busts that pulled large quantities of fentanyl out of local circulation. Nonprofits such as the Metro Drug Coalition continue to emphasize that harm-reduction services and more reliable pathways into treatment are critical if the county hopes to keep the numbers moving in the same direction…