MA state police report 185 fatal heroin overdoses in four months

[unhappycamper]

http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140225/NEWS/140227732/1994/NEWS



U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass, invited President Barack Obama's top adviser on drug control policy, R. Gil Kerlikowske, to Taunton on Monday to discuss strategies to reduce fatal heroin overdoses and improve the public health system and substance abuse treatment.

MA state police report 185 fatal heroin overdoses in four months

At least 185 people have died of heroin overdoses in Massachusetts during the last four months, state police said Tuesday.

The statistics released by state police do not include fatal overdoses in the state’s three largest cities — Boston, Springfield and Worcester — because local police handle their own death investigations in those cities and state police do not track those cases.

“Our experience and accumulate knowledge, however, indicates that these numbers absolutely represent an increased rate of fatal heroin overdoses,” state police spokesman David Procopio said.

The overdoses were largely concentrated in southeastern Massachusetts, western Massachusetts, the Merrimack Valley and Middlesex County.

[MADem]

1. Perhaps part of the same batch that took Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Is it me, does it seem that heroin is back on the uptick?

Way back when, it was around a good deal, and then it was supplanted by the Rush Limbaugh "hillbilly heroin" prescription pills.

Hmmm.

State police said there are several factors contributing to the recent increase in fatal overdoses, including suppliers cutting heroin with Fentanyl, a synthetic substance that increases the drug’s toxicity. They said a very potent strain of heroin appears to be flooding the streets and users may be using heroin along with other drugs.
“Add to those one more probable factor, the fact that heroin is more readily available and easier for users to obtain than other opiates or prescription narcotics,” Procopio said.