Fingers Crossed –

Feb. 22, 2018 – In Alaska, where deaths declined more than 11 percent between the 12-month period ending July 2016 and the 12-month period ending July 2017, the state’s public health chief, Jay Butler, said the trend has been cause for some optimism. The greatest portion of that decline was in prescription opioids, drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin, Butler said. “And we may be seeing a plateauing, if not a decline, in overdose deaths from heroin,” he added. “The bad news is that we’re seeing more deaths from fentanyl.” Indeed, fentanyl-related deaths spiked more than 70 percent nationwide in the 12-month period ending July 2017, according to the report.
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