Although the state has tried to add new safety measures and informational programs to try and stop the rampant opioid abuse problem, overdose deaths in Massachusetts are above what was expected for this year and do not look like they’re slowing down.

Last year 1,256 people in the state overdosed on opiates. In the first three months of 2015 just over 300 people died, and that number could rise as investigators finish solving undetermined cases. If that trend continues 2015 will likely see just as much if not more deaths as 2014. A 250 percent increase of deaths per 100,000 people has occurred in the past few years, with opioid related overdoses increasing from 5.3 people per 100,000 in 2000 to 18.6 people per 100,000 in 2014. In this state overdoses account for more deaths than gun violence and car accidents combined.

The state has tried to push out more antidote drugs to police and emergency responders and launched awareness campaigns on painkillers. An addiction medicine specialist at Boston University, Dr. Daniel Alford, said that the state has come down on prescriptions but that may be leading people towards street opiates like heroin which is why the number of overdose deaths does not seem to be coming down. He thinks it may just take time for the state’s programs to really sink in. There’s no quick or easy solution to a problem so big.

The executive director of Learn to Cope, Joanne Peterson, said she thinks that parents need to be more educated on the dangers of prescription painkillers. They are closer to their children than most government awareness programs, and kids are vulnerable to experimenting with medicines they find in the bathroom cabinet.

Dr. Dennis Dimitri says that more than half of prescribers don’t regularly use the prescription monitoring program that is in place, and a lot of patients have reported that their doctor doesn’t talk about the risks associated with pain medicine when they prescribe it. He urges his colleagues in medicine to talk to their patients about addiction and how to store and dispose of their medication so it doesn’t inadvertently get in the wrong hands. There is a large portion of the population taking these drugs whose name isn’t the one on the bottle.

The governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, said he is going to do even more to fight this epidemic. He wants to get to the root of why people become addicted, and is going to make more addiction education available to pregnant or new mothers as well as make the antidote drug, naloxone, more available. While naloxone, or Narcan, is great because it could potentially save lives, it still does not address the problem of addiction itself, just the potential of overdosing.