Claim: Data suggests opioid-related overdose deaths in Alaska down.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Charlie Baker
text: proposed the previous November, and during his testimony, expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of supervised injection sites. In February 2018, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released data showing that opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts fell by 8 percent in 2017, and the following May, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released further data showing the number of opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts during the first three months of 2018 was 5 percent lower than during the first three months of 2017. In June 2018, Baker spoke in support of a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on

title: Opioid epidemic
text: compared to 2016. In the U.S., addiction and overdoses affect mostly Whites and the working class. Native Americans and Alaska Natives experienced a five-fold increase in opioid-overdose deaths between 1999 and 2015, with Native Americans having the highest increase of any demographic group. One physician conjectured that this trend may be due to doctors being less likely to prescribe opiates to patients because of past drug abuse stereotypes. In the United States, those living in rural areas of the country have been the hardest hit since the Great Depression of 2k as a percentage of the national population, Canada is

title: Opioid epidemic
text: 1,500 deaths in 2017. In Pennsylvania, the number of opioid deaths increased 44 percent from 2016 to 2017, with 5,200 deaths in 2017. Governor Tom Wolf declared a state of emergency in response to the crisis. Approximately 80 percent of the global pharmaceutical opioid supply is consumed in the United States. It has also become a serious problem outside the U.S., mostly among young adults. The concern not only relates to the drugs themselves, but to the fact that in many countries doctors are less trained about drug addiction, both about its causes or treatment. According to an epidemiologist at

title: Opioid overdose
text: 72,000 overdose deaths in the US in 2017, opioids were involved in over 49,000. This is an increase from 2016 where over 64,000 died from drug overdose, and opioids were involved in over 42,000. In 2016, the five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose were West Virginia (52.0 per 100,000), Ohio (39.1 per 100,000), New Hampshire (39.0 per 100,000), Pennsylvania (37.9 per 100,000) and Kentucky (33.5 per 100,000). Concerning the 2017 data in the charts below deaths from the various drugs add up to more than 72,000 because multiple drugs are involved in many of

title: Opioid epidemic
text: increased over 72% from 2014 to 2015. In addition, the CDC reports that the total deaths from opioid overdoses may be under-counted, since they do not include deaths that are associated with synthetic opioids which are used as pain relievers. The CDC presumes that a large proportion of the increase in deaths is due to illegally-made fentanyl; as the statistics on overdose deaths (as of 2015) do not distinguish pharmaceutical fentanyl from illegally-made fentanyl, the actual death rate could, therefore, be much higher than reported. Those taking fentanyl-laced heroin are more likely to overdose because they do not know they

title: Opioid epidemic
text: Hispanic and Native Americans has increased at similar rates. Deaths by overdose among white, black, and Native Americans increased by 200–300% from 2010–2014. During this time period, overdoses among Hispanics increased 140%, and the data available on overdoses by Asians was not comprehensive enough to draw a conclusion. Social media may also be an outlet for detecting illegal online sales of opioids. In 2017, researchers tested a methodology that used keywords to aggregate tweets and employed unsupervised machine learning and web forensic analyses to identify illegal online marketing of opioids. These efforts can aid criminal investigators in identifying violators of

title: 2014 Florida Amendment 2
text: over time the relationship was even more apparent, as deaths attributed to opioid overdose were nearly 20 percent lower in the first year after a state's medical use law was implemented, and opioid overdose deaths continued to decrease to 33.7 percent lower five years after implementation of medicinal use laws. The study provides irrefutable evidence using a discrete data set (state), with a clear variable (with or without medicinal cannabis use), and a measurable mortality rate may provide the proof that cannabis is a safer medication for those patients suffering from chronic pain such as that endured by cancer patients.

title: 2014 Florida Amendment 2
text: death caused by opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2010. Results of the research reflect that on average, the (then 13) states with laws permitting medical use of cannabis reported an opioid overdose mortality rate at 24.8 percent lower after the compassionate use laws were enacted than those states without compassionate use laws. Implications of the findings may be the best evidence of the claims long made by proponents of medical marijuana use whose previous arguments were largely supported by anecdotal evidence due to the FDA ban inhibiting research. Long term benefits may be even greater where the study revealed that

title: Opioid epidemic
text: overdose and addiction associated with the drug. SB 1109 also targets vulnerable populations like students, requiring schools to provide students participating in youth sports or athletic programs with the Opioid Factsheet for Patients, written by the CDC, that again address the risks of opioid use. At 24.6 deaths per 1,000 people, Ohio has the 5th highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States. The Governor's Cabinet Opiate Action Team (GCOAT) was created in 2011 by Governor John Kasich and is "one of the nation's most aggressive and comprehensive approaches to address opioid use disorder and overdose deaths, including

title: Opioid epidemic
text: trafficked by cartels. North America's dominant trafficking group is Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, which has been linked to 80 percent of the fentanyl seized in New York. Opioid epidemic The opioid epidemic or opioid crisis is the rapid increase in the use of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs in the United States and Canada beginning in the late 1990s and continuing throughout the next two decades. The increase in opioid overdose deaths has been dramatic, and opioids are now responsible for 49,000 of the 72,000 drug overdose deaths overall in the US in 2017. The rate of prolonged opioid use is

title: Opioid epidemic
text: to combat the rapid increase in overdoses by increasing and speeding up coordination between the state and local jurisdictions. In 2016, about 2,000 people in the state had died from opioid overdoses. Delaware, which has the 12th-highest overdose death rate in the U.S., introduced bills to limit doctors' ability to over-prescribe painkillers and improve access to treatment. In 2015, 228 people had died from overdose, which increased 35%to 308in 2016. A similar plan was created in Michigan, which introduced the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS), allowing doctors to check when and what painkillers have already been prescribed to a patient,

title: Opioid overdose
text: 2015, up from 18,000 deaths in 1990. In the United States over 49,000 deaths involved opioids in 2017. Of those about 20,000 involved prescription opioids and 16,000 involved heroin. In 2017 opioid deaths represented more than 65% of all drug overdose related deaths in the United States. The opioid epidemic is believed to be in part due to assurances in the 1990s by the pharmaceutical industry that prescription opioids were safe. Because of their effect on the part of the brain that regulates breathing, Opioids can lead to the person not breathing (respiratory depression) during overdoses and therefore result in

title: Substance use disorder
text: 72,000 deaths from drug overdose in the United States in 2017. This represents a 3-fold increase in mortality from overdose from 2002 to 2017. Overdose fatalities from synthetic opioids, which typically involve fentanyl, have risen sharply in the past several years to contribute to nearly 30,000 deaths per year. Death rates from synthetic opioids like fentanyl have increased 22-fold in the period from 2002 to 2017. Heroin and other natural and semi-synthetic opioids combined to contribute to roughly 31,000 overdose fatalities. Cocaine contributed to roughly 15,000 overdose deaths, while methamphetamine and benzodiazepines each contributed to roughly 11,000 deaths. Of note,

title: Opioid epidemic
text: heroin. While rates of overdose of legal prescription opiates has leveled off in the past decade, overdoses of illicit opiates have surged since 2010, nearly tripling. In a 2015 report, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated that "overdose deaths, particularly from prescription drugs and heroin, have reached epidemic levels." Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths in 2016 involved prescription opioids. From 1999 to 2008, overdose death rates, sales, and substance abuse treatment admissions related to opioid pain relievers all increased substantially. By 2015, there were more than 50,000 annual deaths from drug overdose, causing more deaths than either car

title: Opioid epidemic
text: accidents or guns. In 2016, around 64,000 Americans died from overdoses, 21 percent more than the approximately 53,000 in 2015. By comparison, the figure was 16,000 in 2010, and 4,000 in 1999. While death rates varied by state, in 2017 public health experts estimated that nationwide over 500,000 people could die from the epidemic over the next 10 years. In Canada, half of the overdoses were accidental, while a third were intentional. The remainder were unknown. Many of the deaths are from an extremely potent opioid, fentanyl, which is trafficked from Mexico. The epidemic cost the United States an estimated

title: Opioid epidemic
text: realize that 115 people still die every day in the United States from an opioid related overdose. Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, Chair of the AMA Opioid Task Force, urges increased participation and collaboration, saying “what is needed now is a concerted effort to greatly expand access to high quality care for pain and for substance use disorders. Unless and until we do that, this epidemic will not end.” Media coverage has largely focused on law-enforcement solutions to the epidemic, which portray the issue as criminal, whereas some see it as a medical issue. There has been differential reporting on

title: Take-home naloxone program
text: They agreed on the need to take part in the take-home naloxone initiatives in West Virginia. Programs and bills were created to distribute naloxone to lay persons across the state. In 2015, a majority of the 52,000 overdose deaths were due to opioids in America. Almost every state enacted legislation addressing this epidemic, and reinstated it in 2017. Until recently, access to naloxone has been limited until there were specific statutory protections for non-medical professionals to obtain and administer the drug. It is prohibited, however, to give this medication to anyone who is not an at-risk drug user. Before prescriptions

title: Opioid epidemic
text: increase in drug overdose deaths from 2015 to 2016", according to a study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association". Fentanyl-laced heroin has become a big problem for major cities, including Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago. Its use has caused a spike in deaths among users of heroin and prescription painkillers, while becoming easier to obtain and conceal. Some arrested or hospitalized users are surprised to find that what they thought was heroin was actually fentanyl. According to CDC director Thomas Frieden: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), death rates from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl,

title: Oxycodone/paracetamol
text: deaths in Ontario (mostly accidental) between 1991 and 2007 that led to a doubling of all opioid-related Ontario deaths over the same period. In March 2017, US President Donald Trump initiated the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. In July 2017, an interim report was published. Some excerpts: <poem>As we have all seen, opioids are a prime contributor to our addiction and overdose crisis. In 2015, nearly two-thirds of drug overdoses were linked to opioids like Percocet, OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl. [...] Americans consume more opioids than any other country in the world. In fact, in

title: Opioid epidemic
text: the University of Florida concluded that there is little evidence that drug-monitoring databases are having a positive effect on the number of drug overdoses in the U.S. Lead researching Chris Delcher, Ph.D., also concluded that "there was a concurrent rise in fatal overdoses from fentanyl, heroin and morphine" due to ease of availability and lower cost following prescription drug crackdowns. The American Medical Association (AMA) has created an Opioid Task Force that is committed to empowering physicians to combat the epidemic. The AMA has suggested 6 actions for physicians to take: The Opioid Task Force 2018 Progress Report states that,