Sorg cited in media reports on increasing drug deaths in Maine
The Associated Press, Maine Public Broadcasting Network, WLBZ (Channel 2) and Bangor Daily News cited Marcella Sorg, a research professor with the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine, in a report about a continued increase in overdose deaths in the state. According to officials, Maine is on pace to set another record for overdose deaths in 2016 because of increased abuse of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin, the AP reported. Data from Maine’s chief medical examiner indicates there were 189 drug overdose deaths in the first six months of the year, a 50 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Sorg. Sorg, a medical and forensic anthropologist who conducted the preliminary analysis of drug overdose death records, told MPBN that of the 189 overdose deaths reported so far, 84 were attributed, at least in part, to fentanyl. “Sometimes it isn’t that a larger number of people are using drugs, but they are using drugs that are a lot more lethal and so they are more apt to die from it,” she said. Sun Journal carried the AP report.