Salem P.D. Reports Spike in Year-End Overdose Deaths

New Hampshire Public Radio has spent two years exploring the opioid crisis, examining everything from how it began to how state officials and the treatment community have responded. In that time, nearly 1,000 Granite Staters have died from drug overdoses — and many, many more have struggled with addiction.

We want to continue our reporting on this important issue in the year ahead, and we need your help. We want to hear how heroin and opioid use has affected your life, whether you've personally experienced addiction or whether you've dealt with the issue secondhand — as a friend, family member, treatment provider or otherwise.

Our hope is that by listening to people who've been touched by the epidemic, we'll better understand the disease of addiction and its impact on our community. 

A bill in the New Hampshire legislature could make it legal to hospitalize someone against their will because of a drug addiction. The bill would amend the state law that allows authorities to involuntarily commit people suffering from a serious mental illness who pose a threat to themselves.

Republic Senator Jeb Bradley says he proposed the bill after he spoke with the family of someone who died of an overdose.

  At least 369 people have fatally overdosed in New Hampshire this year, according to an update released Tuesday by the state medical examiner.

But the state says another 78 cases are still under review, so the actual number could be even higher. 

Federal legislation aimed at helping states struggling with the opioid epidemic is headed to President Obama’s desk. That’s after the U.S. Senate Wednesday passed the proposal 94 to 5.

 Fentanyl continues to be the main culprit behind deadly overdoses in New Hampshire: It’s been linked to 70 percent of drug deaths so far this year, according to the latest data from the state medical examiner.