As a cursory examination of moral panics in the past will show, 35 years is not an extremely long period of time for such a hysteria to last. It's viewed as long by some people because that span of time is a significant portion of the individual human life span. However, it's but a tiny portion of time in regards to the span of human history in general.

I believe the available evidence makes it clear that the hysteria has just about peaked, if not peaked already, and is now a bit past its heyday. It will be a while to go before the hysteria winds down to the point where we can truly take a breather, but little by little it's getting there. It won't happen overnight, of course, so such a winding down process will necessarily be incremental.