State health officials believe more than 1,000 people died as a result of opioid-related overdoses in Massachusetts last year.The figures were released Tuesday as Governor Charlie Baker joined U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell and state Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders in Boston for a discussion of the heroin and painkiller abuse crisis.
Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health says there were 600 confirmed opioid overdose deaths in the Bay State in 2014, with the agency's models indicating an additional 408 deaths for a total of 1,008. That’s a 3 percent increase over the 967 deaths in the previous year, and is 33 percent above 2012. Baker’s administration formed an opioid task force in February, a move applauded by North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright.
“They’re talking about education and treatment,” Alcombright said. “I think they’ve got all the right things going right now.”
Writing in an op-ed in The Boston Globe, Baker, Burwell and Sudders call the numbers "staggering.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
