Mass. opioid deaths down 6% from last year
Photo | Flickr | K-State Research and Extension
Three-quarters of the way through the year, opioid-related deaths are down in Massachusetts by 6% compared to 2018, the state announced Monday.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said the state had 1,460 opioid-related deaths either confirmed or estimated. That's a drop of 99 from the same period last year, when an eventual 2,033 were killed by opioids — the state's third-highest year on record.
The high by slowly declining opioid death numbers were a good sign in Monday's report, but fentanyl, a synthetic opioid far stronger than heroin and sometimes mixed with or substituted for it, was present in a higher proportion of cases than before.
Through the first nine months of the year, fentanyl was found in 93% of opioid-related overdose deaths in which a toxicology screen was done, the state said. That's up from 89% last year.
Prescription opioids were present in 13% of fatalities.
It is prescription drugs where much of the state's efforts at combating the opioid epidemic have been focused. The Massachusetts Prescription Monitoring Program, which tracks such prescribed drugs, received 40% fewer Schedule II opioid prescriptions — including for fentanyl, OxyContin and Percocet — in the first nine months of 2019 compared to the previous year.
The Gov. Charlie Baker Administration said it has doubled spending to address the opioid crisis, including adding more than 1,200 new treatment beds.
The latest state data does not include a breakdown by city and town. Worcester, however, was one of few communities statewide where opioid deaths rose last year. The city recorded 97 such deaths in 2018, up from 80 in 2017.
Statewide, the number of confirmed or suspected opioid deaths peaked at 2,095 in 2016. By last year, that number fell 3% to 2,033.
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