Opioid Deaths Hit 16 Year High on Cape

BARNSTABLE – New state figures show that the number of opioid-related deaths on Cape Cod hit a 16-year high last year.

There were 78 overdose deaths last year in Barnstable County, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. That was up from 71 in 2015 and 55 in 2014.

There were 2 overdose deaths on Nantucket in 2016, up from 1 the previous year. Dukes County saw a decrease, with 3 overdose deaths in 2016 compared to 7 in 2015.

The 185 overdose deaths in Plymouth County in 2016 represented a slight increase, up from 178 in 2015.

Barnstable had the most overdose deaths on Cape Cod last year with 22. There were 15 in Falmouth, 8 in Bourne, and 7 in Yarmouth and Mashpee.

Just off-Cape, Plymouth had 22 overdose deaths and Wareham had 15.

Statewide, officials report more than 2,000 people died from opioid-related overdoses last year. Quarterly data from the Department of Public Health also shows as many as 479 opioid-related deaths in the first three months of 2017.

The focus of the epidemic continues to shift toward the synthetic drug fentanyl.

Fentanyl was present in nearly 70 percent of the deaths last year, a nearly four-fold increase from just two years earlier. By contrast, heroin was present in about one of three deaths last year, compared to as many as three of four in 2014.

You can find the town-by-town 2016 figures below.

Aquinnah: 0

Barnstable: 22

Bourne: 8

Brewster: 3

Chatham: 1

Chilmark: 0

Dennis: 4

Eastham: 0

Edgartown: 0

Falmouth: 15

Gosnold: 0

Harwich: 3

Mashpee: 7

Nantucket: 2

Oak Bluffs: 1

Orleans: 2

Plymouth: 22

Provincetown: 0

Sandwich: 4

Tisbury: 1

Truro: 1

Wareham: 15

Wellfleet: 0

West Tisbury: 1

Yarmouth: 7