Stephen Marciano had to watch his brother Peter slowly die before succumbing to a heroin overdose. Now he is working to remind people in Massachusetts that the opioid crisis is still a major problem that isn’t going away.
Non-fatal overdoses in Massachusetts had soared by 200 percent from 2011 to 2015, with the total number of non-fatal overdoses during that period topping 65,000.
That's one finding of a report released Wednesday by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker's administration assessing the scope of the state's opioid crisis.
The report found more than four percent of Massachusetts residents age 11 and older were estimated to have opioid use disorder in 2015 - compared to 8 percent diagnosed with diabetes.
The report also concluded those with a higher overdose risk include the homeless, those recently released from incarceration and those with a serious mental illness or depression.
The last time Massachusetts saw such a sharp increase in deaths in a single category was during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s.
