Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner says he expects nearly 900 people will die of a drug overdose this year. The number of deaths has been increasing every year since 2012 – in fact, it’s more than doubled since then. The biggest factor in the increase comes from the painkiller fentanyl.
Fentanyl is stronger than heroin, and it can easily be fatal. More people died from fentanyl-involved overdoses so far this year than in all of 2015. That’s especially striking when you look at fentanyl mixed with cocaine or heroin. That’s the combination that poisoned at least 16 people in New Haven on one day in June. Three of those people died.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said later this week that fentanyl is the state’s biggest drug-related concern because it’s laced into so many other drugs.
“Simply put, people are abusing an opioid and finding out too late that it has been laced with large amounts of fentanyl.”
The state has distributed more than 9,000 kits containing naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. The Connecticut State Police say they’ve used naloxone to save at least 100 lives in the last two years.
