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Overdose deaths in Ohio pass 4,000
Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A newspaper survey of Ohio county coroners has found more than 4,000 people died from drug overdoses last year in a state among the hardest hit by a heroin and opioid epidemic.

The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday that the state’s 4,149 unintentional fatal overdoses in 2016 are a 36 percent increase from the previous year when just over 3,000 deaths were reported.

Citing an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation that used statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the newspaper said Ohio led the nation in the total number of fatal overdoses in 2014 and 2015.

The increase is being attributed to heroin and the powerful synthetic opioids fentanyl and carfentanil. Last year’s total is expected to go higher as coroners tabulate final numbers.

Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, far outpaced the rest of the state with 666 deaths in 2016, with the majority of those deaths blamed on fentanyl use.

William Denihan, the outgoing chief executive of the Cuyahoga County Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services Board, called the opioid epidemic a ‘‘tsunami.’’

‘‘We’ve done so much, but the numbers are going the other way,’’ Denihan said. ‘‘I don’t see the improvement.’’

Associated Press