Overdose Deaths Increase in Georgia

Police warning of dangerous new substance used to lace heroin, fentanyl PHILADELPHIA, PA - JULY 31: Chris, a homeless heroin addict, mixes cocaine and heroin near a railway underpass in the Kensington section of Philadelphia which has become a hub for heroin use on July 31, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Today was the first day of a long anticipated clean-up of one of the largest open air drug markets on the East Coast. Hundreds of outreach workers, city employees and Conrail workers started to clear an area of heroin users from a stretch of train tracks in Philadelphia's Kensington section known as El Campamento. Over 900 people died last year in Philadelphia from opioid overdoses, a 30 percent increase from 2015. As the epidemic shows no signs of weakening, the number of fatalities this year is expected to surpass last year's numbers. Heroin use has doubled across the country since 2010, according to the DEA, part of an epidemic of opioid abuse that began in the 1990s, when doctors began prescribing higher doses of powerful painkillers. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Spencer Platt)

By Sabrina Cupit

The number of Georgians who have died from an opioid overdose has more than doubled since 2010, according to preliminary data from the Georgia Department of Health. In just a year's time more than a hundred more-people died in 2017 compared to 2016.

In 2016, 928 people in Georgia died from an opioid overdose compared to 1,043 in 2017.

Nick Heaghney with the Georgia Department of Health says, "the rates more than doubled in less than ten years." He says the biggest increases in overdose deaths were linked to synthetic Fentanyl.

According to the CDC, in 2016, synthetic opioids (primarily illegal fentanyl) passed prescription opioids as the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths in the United States.

Fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and many times that of heroin.

In 2016, synthetic opioids were involved in nearly 50% (19,413) of opioid-related deaths, up from 14% (3,007) in 2010.