AUGUSTA, Maine — More Maine residents fatally overdosed on drugs in 2014 than in any previous year on record, driven by a “shocking increase” in heroin deaths, according to an analysis released Friday by the state attorney general’s office.
Last year, 208 people in Maine died from drug overdoses, jumping 18 percent from 176 deaths in 2013, the office of Maine Attorney General Janet Mills announced. That made 2014 the deadliest year for drug overdoses since the state began tracking them in 1997.
Among the deaths in 2014, 57 were caused by heroin or morphine, spiking from 34 in 2013.
“Not one county, not one community is untouched by this scourge,” Mills said in a news release. “Profit-seeking dealers from out-of-state are setting up shop along the I-95 corridor and dealing in every corner of the state. No one is immune from these deaths.”
Deaths from another narcotic 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin quadrupled in 2014. Fentanyl, a white powder drug dealers often market as heroin, caused 43 deaths last year, either alone or mixed with other drugs. Fentanyl was implicated in nine deaths in 2013.
The drug, a painkiller and anesthetic, is sold on the street in a non-pharmaceutical grade.
Among all of last year’s drug deaths, additional substances included cocaine and other opioids. Alcohol was involved in about a third of all drug deaths, and tranquilizers and antidepressant medications also were common, according to the release.
Those who died ranged in age from 18 to 88, with an average age of 43.
Drug overdose deaths began rising in 2001, remaining high largely due to prescription painkiller abuse, said Marcella Sorg of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine, who analyzed the statistics. But deaths from methadone and oxycodone held steady last year.
“What is remarkable about the numbers in 2014 is a new increase in heroin and fentanyl deaths driving the number of total deaths to an unprecedented level for Maine,” she said in the news release.
Mills called for the state to respond to substance abuse with education, interdiction and treatment.
“No single focus will solve the problem,” she said.
Gov. Paul LePage has proposed new spending to hire more prosecutors and drug detectives, while eliminating funding for methadone treatment and steering recovering opiate addiction patients to Suboxone.
Sorg performed the drug death analysis in collaboration with the Maine Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Heroin and morphine are sometimes indistinguishable in toxicology reports, so the analysis included investigations from the scenes of overdose deaths and individuals’ medical records.
