January was the first month in more than two and a half years with no fatal overdoses in Portland.
That comes on top of a 21 percent decline in overdoses overall last month, compared with January 2023, the Portland Police Department said Thursday afternoon.
It’s a spot of bright news after Portland police warned in early January of an alarming spike in overdoses at the end of last year.
The city saw a 62 percent surge in overdoses from November (34) to December (55), compared with 12.5 percent between November and December 2022. That included 20 overdoses, including three fatalities, in the final week of 2023.
Initially, it seemed like that trend would continue into January, with three overdoses occurring over just the first two days of the new year.
Overall, the city reported 527 overdoses in 2023, compared with 518 the year before. While overdoses increased last year in Portland, fewer of them resulted in death, with just 47 fatalities, compared with 51 in 2022, police reported last month.
The average age for overdose victims in Portland was 43, and 79 percent of cases involved men.
Maine continues to grapple with a severe opioid epidemic, fueled by increasing amounts of fentanyl contaminating the opioid supply. That fueled a record-breaking 716 fatal overdoses in 2022, the first time Maine saw drug fatalities surge over 700.
Officials have been cautiously optimistic about a slowdown in overdoses in 2023. There were 607 fatal overdoses between January and December 2023, according to the latest monthly overdose report. That’s fewer overdoses than the same period last year when Maine saw 723 drug deaths.
A new law requires on-duty law enforcement to carry the overdose-reversing drug Narcan. Portland police officers have been carrying Narcan since 2016.