Sanford police responded to six suspected opioid overdoses last weekend, including one death.
The overdoses all took place from Friday to Saturday within about a half a square mile of each other. Sanford Police Chief Thomas Connolly says he suspects that the people who overdosed all purchased heroin from the same individual, and that it was laced with fentanyl, a highly potent narcotic.
Connolly says the spate is a reminder that the state needs to provide more access to medication assisted treatment.
“You have people that you want to say, ‘Look, you’ve got to stop doing this. You’re going to kill yourself.’ But then they say, ‘Well, what can I do?’ And there’s nothing,” he says.
Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine says the overdoses in Sanford should be a wake up call for Congress. He’s urging lawmakers to immediately advance a bill he co-sponsored that would provide $600 million to help states fight the opioid epidemic.
