Expanded Maine Drug Death Report for 2017

This report, funded by the Maine Office of Attorney General, provides a summary of statistics regarding drug fatalities in Maine during 2016. Data for the report were collected at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. A “drug death” is identified when one or more drugs are mentioned on the death certificate as a cause or significant contributing factor for the death. Analysis of these deaths reveals a dramatic increase over 2015 in the total number of fatalities due to drugs, driven by a sharp surge in overdoses due to non-pharmaceutical fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and heroin/morphine. Note: There have been minor changes to the preliminary 2016 totals released previously, due updated death certificate information. The revised total number of drug deaths is 376.