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Alaska had fewer overdose deaths in 2024 than in the year prior, and state health officials are working on ways to continue to reduce that total in the future.

In all, 339 people died from drug overdoses in 2024 Alaska, a 5% decline from the record high of 357 hit the year before, according to an annual report released by the state Department of Health.

Alaska’s decline was not as dramatic as the nationwide drop in overdose deaths.

Nationally, the 2024 death total was nearly 27% lower than the total for the previous year, continuing a declining trend that followed several years of sharp increases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overdose deaths, as measured in total numbers, peaked in the U.S. in 2021, according to the CDC. As measured by rate per 100,000 people, they peaked in 2022.

It is not yet clear whether Alaska’s decline in fatal overdose rates will catch up to the national rates or even if the state’s decline will last, said Jessica Filley, an epidemiology specialist with the department.

“I think it’s too early to say if this trend is going to continue,” said Filley, speaking on Thursday during a break at the annual Alaska Public Health Association Summit in Anchorage.

If the trend does continue, several factors may be responsible, she said. One of those factors could be the wider use of naloxone, an overdose-reversal medicine, she said.

Distribution of the emergency medicine has increased substantially in recent years, said Tim Easterly, coordinator of a Department of Health program that provides naloxone kits to people who might be treating at-risk Alaskans.

When the program started about eight years ago, it distributed about 8,000 kits annually, Easterly said at the health summit. In the past two years, it has distributed more than 40,000 kits annually, he said. “So this program has grown. And, unfortunately, we continue to see demand, steady around that 40,000 kits per year,” he said.

Naloxone kits are provided to schools around the state under a law enacted in 2024, for example.

Filley, in a presentation at the conference, described some state efforts to try to use a more holistic approach to prevent overdose deaths.

The state’s medical examination process includes an overdose committee that gathers information not just from official documents like toxicology reports, but also from family members, healthcare providers, first responders and other people who can fill in the backstories of overdose victims.

Those reviews reveal life stories that can contain complex and interwoven challenges that preceded the overdoses. Some victims had complex mental or physical health problems that did not get addressed. Some had traumatic experiences in childhood. Housing insecurity and homelessness also emerged as a factor in some cases, she said.

Reviewing each case took hours; the committee reviewed two every quarter, or eight in the past year. Using those reviews, the committee compiled some recommendations for more comprehensive prevention and treatment.

One of the committee’s recommendations, Filley said, is for “more integrated peer support” and more coordination of case management across different settings, including healthcare facilities, treatment facilities, parole operations and interactions with first responders.

Another recommendation is for better education about trauma, including from experiences in childhood that may have long-lasting effects, she said. “We definitely have some cases where there’s evidence that the decedent experienced trauma or adversity in childhood,” she said.

The committee also recommended more education about dangers from substances other than opioids, including alcohol. While opioids have received heightened attention in recent years and are implicated in most fatalities, there are many cases where victims are abusing multiple substances simultaneously.

Statistics from the state’s annual report show that only 35% of overdose deaths between 2020 and 2024 involved a single drug. The most common combination in fatal cases over those years was a blend of synthetic narcotics like fentanyl with psychostimulants, the state report said. Examples of psychostimulants are amphetamines and cocaine.

There were twice as many fatal overdoses among men than among women in 2024, similar to ratios in the four preceding years. By region, Anchorage had the highest rate of fatal overdose per 100,000 people over all years from 2020 to 2024, according to the state report. In 2024, Anchorage had about two thirds of the state’s overdose deaths, even though it has about 40% of the state’s residents.

Eight cross-country skiers from Alaska are going to the 2026 Olympics in Italy next month. U.S. Ski and Snowboard announced the team Thursday morning.

Alaskans make up one half of the 16-skier U.S. cross-country ski team. All eight of the athletes ski with Alaska Pacific University’s team in Anchorage. APU coach Erik Flora said it’s unusual for so many cross-country skiers on Team USA to come from one state, and one club. He said APU is one of the biggest, strongest ski clubs in the country.

Flora said the team has been steadily improving over the last decade. This year, he said, it’s very likely that Alaskans will bring home some medals for the United States.

Gus Schumacher, Hunter Wonders, Zanden McMullen and JC Schoonmaker are skiing for the U.S. men’s team.

Rosie Brennan, Kendall Kramer, Novie McCabe and Hailey Swirbul are skiing for the U.S. women’s team.

It’s Gus Schumacher’s second Olympics. He said the skiers themselves already knew who’d made it since the criteria is pretty clear, but he’s glad the news is out.

“Fun to share with everyone, officially,” he said. “Nice to tell people and just being sure about it.”

He’s feeling good, he said, because he thinks this year he and his teammates have a real chance to help Team USA bring home a men’s cross-country medal. The only other time the U.S. men’s team medaled at the Olympics was 50 years ago, in 1976. Earlier Friday, Schumacher earned a third-place podium result in a World Cup relay sprint race with teammate Ben Ogden in Switzerland.

“It’s exciting to be feeling good, and have a big opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done in a long time,” he said. “And yeah, it’s exciting. It’s a little daunting, but just got to go there and experience it and realize how lucky we are to be able to do this.”

It’s 37-year-old Rosie Brennan’s third Olympics. But this year is different for her. Brennan has been struggling with what she calls “mysterious health issues” for over a year.

Now, she’ll have what is likely her last chance to compete in the Olympics, she said. It’s bittersweet, since she had hoped to contend for medals in Cortina but she said that’s not her reality anymore. Now, she’d just love to have a race where she feels like herself again.

“It’s been a long time since I felt like the Rosie I’m accustomed to racing with for the last 15 years,” she said.

There were times she wasn’t sure she was even going to make it to this year’s Olympics.

Now that she’s going, she’s thankful her teammates are with her, helping her stay focused.

“They’re the people that have seen everything that I’ve gone through and have been there to help me through it,” she said. “So that just gives you such a sense of comfort on the road, and especially like in big events like the Olympics.”

Hailey Swirbul didn’t have a straight path to the Olympics this year either. She quit skiing in 2023 because she wanted to experience life outside a stressful ski racing career – she was burned out.

Then, this summer, she started coaching for APU. She was skiing and feeling strong and thinking about the limited time she has to do the things she loves. The idea of competing at the Olympics bumped around in her head for a few months until she eventually decided: Let’s do it, take the risk, go for something big.

But she said she’s thinking about the Olympics differently than she did when she competed four years ago in Beijing. Taking a couple years away from competitive racing has really given her a perspective about what’s important in life.

“Sports are important but what really matters is the people that you know are there through the ups and downs,” she said.

She’s talking about her teammates, and friends and family, but also her role coaching at APU.

When the news came out that she’d made the Olympic team, a big group of her middle school skiers made a video for her, cheering and chanting her name. She said it made her heart swell when she got it.

They inspire her to work harder, she said. The real inspiration in an endurance sport like cross-country skiing comes from seeing someone’s grit, she said. It comes from watching athletes as they dig deep to push through the suffering.

“Those kids are watching and they notice and they pay attention,” she said. “And I think it’s so important to try to lead by example with your effort.”

This year, she said, her goal at the Olympics is to race in a way that inspires the kids back home.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature under way, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation.

Morning Host Mike Lane recently sat down with Representative Andi Story to learn what’s on her agenda for this session.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: The second regular session of the 34th Alaska legislature has just begun. What are your top priorities for this session?

Rep. Story: My top priorities for this session have to do with keeping our young people here, cost of living, housing is really important. And of course, education and ferries, ferries, ferries.

Mike Lane: Speaking of education, you pre-filed a bill on education funding, House Bill 261. Can you give us a brief explanation of what the bill would do if passed?

Rep. Story: Well, if you’ve been living in Juneau for a long time, you know that our education funding is backwards, that we do not get our numbers to our school districts till, like, June after the session is over. And so they are not being able to give contracts to their teaching staff, to staff at all. And so they’re living in limbo, and they leave us or we can’t maintain them. And so this bill has us do our funding a year early, where they get the number. It takes the average of the last three years student count or your last prior year student count, so whichever is greater, so we will give more stability to school districts. So that’s just critically important. And this came about because I’m on the task force for education funding. We’ve been reviewing. If you are an independent school district, you have your own taxing authority. They usually take the current year and the prior two years. But we cannot raise our own revenue. We are dependent upon what the state does and our municipalities. It allows us to focus on student achievement and not redoing budgets, and not put our community in chaos because we have to predict all this out. We don’t know our number, so I want to give confidence to our school funding budget process. 

Mike Lane: So what is your plan for getting this bill passed?

Rep. Story: I co-chair education. I’m starting to talk to people about it. I have an advantage that I’m on the task force, and so people have read that report, they’re, they’re aware of that, but just have a lot of talking to do. But people have been living this roller coaster of instability for funding for school districts, so it’s not going to be a surprise for them that we’re trying to stabilize this.

Mike Lane: What other bills have you sponsored or co-sponsored that you think could get traction or succeed this session?

Rep. Story: Well, I’m really hoping my bill, which is in house rules, on housing investments, where [Alaska Industrial Development Economic Association]will be allowed to do workforce housing, give developers loans for workforce housing of five dwelling units or more. This has been critical. We have to move on housing. There are a few things that [Alaska Housing Finance Corporation] does, but this is something AIDEA  could do that would really help developers. 

Mike Lane: How can Alaskans inside and outside of Juneau get a hold of you?

Rep. Story: 907-465-3744, of course. I’m on the website, but calling is really good. And I very frequently do Zoom meetings, you know, phone calls. And I do that with Alaska residents too. Juneau residents who do not want to drive and try and find parking downtown, they just call and we set up a meeting. So please call, please email. That is probably the number one thing we have to do is bring the community, the state in on our policies, and get their voices heard. And so I like to hear what people really want me to be working on

Mike Lane: To wrap up: As one of Juneau’s representatives, what do you see as your ultimate duties and responsibilities to the people of Juneau and all of Alaska?

Rep. Story: Really, to meet our constitutional obligations because it is so important — the people of the state. We have a lot of resources in the state. The biggest resource we have is each of us, is the people. So we want to try and bring that voice up to the the capitol that it’s important our human resources and how are we making sure we have quality of life here.

In this newscast:

• Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board of directors is pushing back against the mayor’s proposal to remove most of the board’s decision-making authority,
• Former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola will be in Juneau today at the Crystal Saloon bar downtown to celebrate her campaign launch for U.S. Senate,
• A new bill aims to bring stability to Alaska school districts’ budgeting process,
• Gov. Mike Dunleavy outlined his agenda for his final year in office in his annual State of the State address on Thursday,
• Alaska Congressman Nick Begich has a new challenger,
• Two Alaska School districts are suing the state over what they say is inadequate funding for public education

Eaglecrest Ski Area’s board of directors is pushing back against the mayor’s proposal to remove most of the board’s decision-making authority. This comes after recent leadership turnover at the mountain and ongoing financial challenges.

Last week, Mayor Beth Weldon told the Juneau Assembly she asked the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance to reduce the status of the board from an empowered board to an advisory board. The Juneau Assembly will discuss the draft ordinance at its committee of the whole meeting on Monday evening. 

As an empowered board, Eaglecrest has its own set of laws, rules and responsibilities and makes decisions without direct Assembly oversight. If it became an advisory board, members could only give advice or make recommendations to the Assembly. It would lose the authority to establish policies or make decisions without Assembly approval. 

“As we know, they’re having major financial issues, and I just think the city needs to have more oversight over what’s happening to Eaglecrest,” she said. “I think the government is standing in its way right now, and it needs to be changed.”

But, at a special meeting on Thursday evening, Eaglecrest’s board moved to draft a letter to the mayor and Assembly asking to remain an empowered board. The board intends to finish the letter this weekend, in time for the Assembly discussion during its committee of the whole meeting on Monday. 

Board member Jim Calvin said remaining an empowered board is in the community’s best interest. 

“The board is deeply engaged in gondola planning work, and we’re deeply engaged in recruiting a new GM (general manager),” he said. “We’re initiating some business planning work, and all of that is at risk of completely derailing if we’re not an empowered board.”

The tension between the Eaglecrest board and the mayor comes after the ski area’s general manager resigned and the board chair stepped down earlier this month. Eaglecrest has also had several issues with its facilities that sullied the beginning of its season, including a broken water line and issues keeping Ptarmigan lift open. 

Eaglecrest is expected to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit in the coming years to repair some broken and aging infrastructure, while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. Its plan toward financial stability relies heavily on revenue from the gondola, which the ski area hopes to get up and running by the summer of 2028.

According to the board, the city plans to post the general manager position online next week, which will remain open until it’s filled. 

Gov. Mike Dunleavy reviewed his seven years in office and outlined his agenda for his final year during his annual State of the State address on Thursday.

“I believe the people in this room can accomplish big things, whether it’s in public education, public safety or stabilizing our fiscal situation,” Dunleavy said. “We’ve got the time to do it. We’ve got the smarts to do it. We just have to have the desire to do it.”

Dunleavy spent much of his 79-minute speech presenting a long list of accomplishments from his first seven years in office.

He highlighted the state’s recovery from an economic downturn after emerging from a recession in early 2018. Dunleavy said his administration had enabled six consecutive years of job growth.

“I know there’s a feeling that things can be better, and of course, they can,” he said. “But our economy has been getting stronger and stronger every year under my administration, and diversifying as well.”

Dunleavy also called out a significant drop in crime across Alaska. The number of crimes reported to police dropped by more than 40% between 2018 and 2024, according to the state Department of Public Safety, and violent crime fell nearly 20% over that period.

He also previewed a new “quality of life” initiative that would seek to reduce crime in Anchorage. He said he was working with Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance on the effort.

Dunleavy said the first phase is already underway, focused on retail theft, illegal camping, disorderly behavior and drug use. He says later phases will focus on drug smuggling and violent crime.

The governor also used the speech to highlight progress on the Alaska LNG project, which would bring natural gas from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska. He applauded an announcement from project developer Glenfarne saying it had secured nonbinding commitments from ExxonMobil and Hilcorp to provide gas for the pipeline, a nonbinding commitment to purchase gas by Southcentral utility Enstar and the planned Donlin Gold mine, and a variety of other deals with other companies to provide materials and support for the project.

Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval said the series of announcements indicated the project was “progressing from planning to building,” though the company stopped short of saying it had made a final investment decision.

Dunleavy said the progress on the gas line was only one piece of good news from his tenure.

“Today, we are on the cusp of realizing a decades-old dream of delivering abundant, affordable energy that will benefit all Alaskans,” he said. “Today, unlike seven years ago, oil production is increasing, reading scores are improving, and the Permanent Fund has reached record highs thanks to steady and strong leadership.”

Dunleavy also said he would work to expand the supply of housing across the state in his final year in office.

Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican leading a bipartisan caucus that has often found itself at odds with Dunleavy, said many of the accomplishments the governor touted were in fact items lawmakers had worked on, too.

“I noted down a whole lot of them, all things that we were involved in, and we appreciate the governor’s leadership on those things, but (those are) things that we have worked hard on,” he said.

Dunleavy also pitched a forthcoming fiscal plan that he said would stabilize the state’s turbulent budget, though he stopped short of outlining what the plan would include. He outlined the goal of his plan — to reduce volatility in the state budget in order to make the state a more attractive place for investment — but stopped short of providing specifics.

On Friday, he introduced two measures in that vein: a cap on government spending and a constitutional amendment that would combine the Permanent Fund into a single account and set up a new formula for dividends. On Wednesday, he said his plan would also include a “temporary, seasonal sales tax concept.”

But lawmakers in the bipartisan, Democrat-heavy House and Senate majorities said they were not optimistic the governor’s plans would pass this year. Even if they did, Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman said he did not expect them to provide immediate relief.

“Even if we move forward with a fiscal plan, it’s going to take a couple years to engage it and get the revenue collected,” he said. “So this year, I would tell the people around the state to expect something very similar to last year.”