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More than 1,000 people died from overdoses of heroin and other opioids last year in Massachusetts, according to figures released Tuesday that provide the sharpest portrait yet of an epidemic that has devastated families across the state. The data, released at an event that included Governor Charlie Baker and the nation’s top health official, show that opioid-related deaths increased 3.3 percent in 2014 compared with 2013. More striking, the number of such deaths last year was 33 percent higher than in 2012. (Lazar, 4/28)

More than 1,000 people in Massachusetts died of opioid-related overdoses last year, according to an estimate made public by state health officials on Tuesday. That’s a 33 percent jump over 2012 figures. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health says there were 600 confirmed opioid-related deaths in 2014, with an additional 408 overdose deaths estimated. (Swasey, 4/28)

As the last of the snow melts in New England, an assortment of debris is emerging — including heroin syringes. It's gotten so bad in this small town that the police chief asked civilians like Pezzati for help. Now that heroin has gotten cheaper and easier to find in rural towns like this, discarded syringes are turning up everywhere. Chip Dodge, the local police chief, says his small force can't keep up. (Brown, 4/28)