While fewer Vermonters are dying from overdoses, supply of illicit drugs remains robust, high prices incentivize trafficking, and the infrastructure supplying Vermont’s drug market has hardened.

by Compass Vermont

Vermont achieved something remarkable in 2024: opioid-related deaths dropped 22% compared to the previous year. Nationally, the decline was even steeper—a historic 27% reduction in fatal drug overdoses marked the largest one-year drop ever recorded.

But beneath these hopeful statistics lies a troubling reality. While fewer Vermonters are dying from overdoses, the availability of illicit drugs in the state remains robust, prices continue to incentivize trafficking, and the infrastructure supplying Vermont’s drug market has hardened rather than weakened. The state has become exceptionally effective at keeping drug users alive through harm reduction measures like naloxone distribution and overdose prevention services. What it hasn’t done is reduce the number of people using drugs or significantly disrupt the profitable trafficking networks that serve them.

This disconnect reveals a fundamental tension in Vermont’s approach: the state is managing the symptoms of its drug crisis while the underlying market dynamics remain largely unchanged.

The Economics Driving Vermont’s Drug Problem

The root cause of Vermont’s persistent drug availability isn’t simply a failure of law enforcement—it’s a market reality. Vermont functions as what drug intelligence analysts call a “destination market,” where the street price of drugs commands a premium of 300% to 500% over source cities in Massachusetts and New York.

The numbers are stark. A single bag of heroin or fentanyl that sells for $4 to $6 in New York City or Springfield, Massachusetts, fetches $20 to $30 in Burlington or rural Vermont. A bundle of 10 bags that costs $40 to $50 at the source sells for $150 to $250 in Vermont. Cocaine, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine follow similar patterns, according to intelligence gathered from the Vermont Drug Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

This “Vermont Premium” creates an irresistible profit opportunity. A dealer from Springfield traveling north along Interstate 91 to sell 1,000 bags of fentanyl in Vermont can net $15,000 to $20,000 in profit for a weekend’s work—compared to perhaps $2,000 selling the same volume in their home city. Even if Vermont law enforcement successfully intercepts 20% or 30% of the drugs crossing state lines, the markup on the remaining supply is more than sufficient to ensure profitability.

The economic incentive is so powerful that it creates what one analysis describes as a “hydra-like problem”: for every trafficker arrested, two more are willing to take the risk because the financial reward is disproportionately high.

What’s Actually Being Sold

Despite the drop in overdose deaths, fentanyl remains ubiquitous in Vermont. In 2024, fentanyl was involved in 93% of all opioid-related fatalities in the state. The traditional heroin market has effectively ceased to exist—what is sold as heroin is almost exclusively fentanyl or fentanyl analogues.

Burlington Police seized over 1,200 grams of heroin/fentanyl and more than 1,000 dosage units in 2024. While these numbers represent significant police work, they’re a drop in the bucket relative to demand. A heavy user may consume 10 to 20 bags per day, meaning a seizure of 1,000 bags disrupts supply for perhaps 50 to 100 users for a single day.

More concerning is the explosive growth of Vermont’s cocaine market. In 2023, cocaine was present in 60% of opioid-related deaths. In 2024, that figure rose to 70%. Burlington Police seized a combined 2.7 kilograms of powder and crack cocaine in 2024—significantly outweighing the volume of fentanyl seizures, indicating that cocaine is currently flooding the Vermont market.

This cocaine resurgence complicates Vermont’s overdose prevention strategy. Naloxone, the overdose-reversal medication that forms the backbone of the state’s harm reduction approach, is ineffective against cocaine toxicity, which causes cardiac events rather than respiratory depression.

Another alarming trend is the entrenchment of xylazine, a veterinary sedative known as “tranq,” in Vermont’s drug supply. In 2023, it was found in 32% of fatal overdoses. In 2024, that number climbed to 42%. Because xylazine is not an opioid, its presence in nearly half of all fatal overdoses indicates that the drugs being trafficked into Vermont are highly adulterated, low-quality mixtures that exploit desperate users.

The “Catch and Release” Pattern

Vermont’s criminal justice reforms, designed to reduce mass incarceration and eliminate cash bail for many non-violent offenses, have created an unintended friction point with drug interdiction efforts. Law enforcement officers report a cycle where traffickers are arrested, processed, and released on conditions within hours, often returning to sell drugs again.

Recent arrest records illustrate this pattern. In December 2024, Tyrone Bryant was arrested in Burlington for cocaine sales while already on probation, with a record including one failure to appear, three felony convictions, and five misdemeanor convictions. In January 2025, William Cole was arrested and released despite having six failures to appear on his record; less than a month later, he was re-arrested for burglary and violation of conditions of release.

Perhaps most striking was the case of Antwvan Baker, a Brooklyn-based trafficker charged with federal distribution crimes in May 2025. Despite being arrested at JFK airport attempting to leave the country—a clear flight risk—he was initially released on an unsecured bond.

Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George has been a vocal proponent of non-carceral solutions, arguing that prosecution does not solve addiction. Police unions and Department of Public Safety officials counter that without meaningful consequences, there’s no leverage to force mid-level dealers to provide information on higher-level suppliers, effectively stalling investigations at the street level.

When a trafficker views arrest not as a business-ending event but as a temporary administrative inconvenience, the deterrent value of enforcement collapses. The Vermont Premium remains worth the risk because the risk of significant incarceration has been substantially lowered.

Where the Money Goes

Vermont’s budget allocation reveals a strategic imbalance that, while not as extreme as some critics claim, clearly prioritizes harm reduction over supply disruption.

The Opioid Abatement Special Fund, flush with millions from settlements with Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and pharmaceutical distributors, is by statutory design and advisory committee recommendation overwhelmingly earmarked for prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. For fiscal year 2026, appropriations include $1.1 million for an Overdose Prevention Center in Burlington, $1.976 million for 26 outreach and case management staff positions, and $1.2 million for recovery residences. Direct enforcement or interdiction funding from this specific fund: zero.

However, the Department of Public Safety, which houses the Vermont State Police and the Drug Task Force, maintains an operating budget exceeding $176 million for fiscal year 2025. The budget includes specific line items for town task force officers and leverages federal grant matching. Vermont also receives significant federal support through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which funds intelligence centers and overtime for multi-jurisdictional investigations.

The real issue isn’t funding authorization—it’s personnel. The Department of Corrections and Vermont State Police are facing historic staffing crises, with vacancy rates hovering around 19% in some sectors. When the state police force is short-staffed, troopers are pulled from proactive drug units to cover mandatory patrol shifts, reducing the number of long-term investigations the state can sustain. A significant portion of the budget is consumed by overtime merely to keep barracks open, rather than funding specialized drug operations.

The Interstate Pipeline

Vermont produces almost zero illicit narcotics. The availability of drugs is entirely dependent on interstate commerce, primarily along the Interstate 91 corridor that law enforcement calls the “Iron Pipeline.”

The primary source cities remain consistent: Springfield and Holyoke, Massachusetts for heroin and fentanyl; Hartford, Connecticut for cocaine and crack; and New York City for all substances. Traffickers often use rental vehicles or recruit local Vermonters—frequently users themselves—to act as “mules” to mitigate the risk of asset forfeiture.

A particularly effective trafficking method involves “cuckooing”—taking over the home of a local addict to use as a base of operations for a short period before returning south with cash. This was explicitly detailed in the sentencing of Nathaniel “JJ” Jones and Jermaine “Bear” Douchette, who used short-term rentals and local residences in Orleans County to distribute fentanyl acquired in Massachusetts.

Even major law enforcement successes represent only a fraction of market volume. A multi-agency operation involving the FBI and Vermont State Police seized 20,000 bags of heroin, valued at approximately $200,000. While substantial, this represents the inventory of perhaps two mid-level wholesalers. In a market serving thousands of daily users, such a seizure creates a temporary shortage that drives up prices—further increasing the Vermont Premium—and incentivizes new traffickers to fill the void.

The Strategic Reality

Vermont’s current approach effectively manages the mortality of the crisis but inadvertently sustains the market fueling it. By heavily investing in naloxone distribution, overdose prevention centers, and low-barrier treatment access without an equally effective mechanism to disrupt supply or meaningfully deter trafficking, the state risks creating what analysts describe as a “zombie market”: users survive, addiction persists, demand remains constant, and supply adapts to serve this protected user base.

The most significant trafficking disruptions—including the 20,000-bag seizure and the breakdown of drug rings operating in the Northeast Kingdom—relied heavily on federal agencies including the DEA, FBI, and ATF. Vermont’s state police force is too small to investigate cross-border networks effectively without this federal support.

Moreover, as long as Springfield, Massachusetts and Brooklyn, New York remain massive wholesale hubs with cheap product, Vermont will remain a downstream victim. Effectively stopping trafficking in Vermont requires stopping it in Massachusetts first—a task far beyond the state’s jurisdictional reach.

To truly address the problem rather than simply manage it, Vermont’s strategy must shift from purely stopping drugs through seizures to stopping the profit that drives trafficking. This could involve more aggressive asset forfeiture and financial crimes prosecution to make the financial risk of trafficking higher than the financial reward. Currently, the risk is primarily incarceration, which judicial reforms have lowered, rather than financial ruin.

Ultimately, supply follows demand. Unless Vermont’s substantial investment in overdose prevention also successfully transitions users into long-term recovery—thereby reducing the customer base—the trafficking will continue indefinitely. The fiscal year 2026 budget includes funding for recovery residences, a step in this direction, but the scale of investment in getting people off drugs lags behind the investment in helping them use drugs more safely.

What Happens Next

Vermont faces a fundamental choice about how to calibrate its drug strategy going forward. The current approach has demonstrably saved lives—the 22% reduction in overdose deaths represents real Vermonters who are still alive. That achievement should not be minimized.

However, the data suggests that without complementary efforts to reduce both demand and profitability, Vermont will succeed in stabilizing the crisis rather than resolving it. The state will continue to have a permanent, surviving class of users served by a permanent, rotating class of traffickers willing to absorb arrest costs as a business expense.

Future legislative sessions will likely see continued debate over the allocation of opioid settlement funds, the balance between prosecutorial discretion and public safety concerns, and whether Vermont should pursue more aggressive financial penalties against trafficking operations. The staffing crisis at the Department of Public Safety and Department of Corrections will need resolution before any enforcement strategy can be fully realized.

Meanwhile, Vermont’s drug market will continue to be shaped by forces largely beyond the state’s control: the wholesale availability of cheap fentanyl and cocaine in regional hubs, federal enforcement priorities, and the fundamental economics of the Vermont Premium that make the state’s small, remote communities such lucrative targets for out-of-state trafficking operations.

The question isn’t whether Vermont should continue its harm reduction investments—the lives saved speak for themselves. The question is whether the state can find a way to pair those investments with strategies that actually shrink the market, rather than simply making it safer to participate in.