Massachusetts Will Mark Overdose Awareness Day Next Week

By Colin A. Young

Gov. Charlie Baker will recognize International Overdose Awareness Day next week, he said, but his plans for marking the day might again fall short of the expectations of some parents who have lost children to opioid overdoses.

A provision in the fiscal 2022 budget requires Massachusetts to recognize International Overdose Awareness Day (Aug. 31) each year with a proclamation from the governor, but the local nonprofit Team Sharing, which works with parents who have lost a child to substance use disorder by providing social networking, grief services and advocacy, has in recent years called on Baker and other governors to lower flags to half-mast in honor of the day.

On Thursday, a woman named Susan from Waltham called into GBH’s Boston Public Radio while Baker was on to ask if he would consider lowering the flags this Aug. 31. Baker responded by saying he would honor Overdose Awareness Day.

“Susan, I’m glad you brought that up. I think we’re celebrating it on the 29th but the answer is yes, we are going to do a ceremony,” he said. After conferring with a press aide, Baker said, “Susan, it’s on Boston Common and it’s on the 29th. I will be there, so will a lot of other people.”

The governor did not directly answer Susan’s question about lower flags to half-mast on Aug. 31. In a 2020 letter to Team Sharing, Baker’s office said the U.S. Flag Code authorizes only certain, specific reasons for the lowering of the U.S. flag to half-mast.

There were 2,290 confirmed and estimated opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts in 2021, about a 9 percent increase over 2020, according to the most up-to-date information from the Department of Public Health. When DPH last reported on overdose deaths, in June, the agency said that the estimated 551 deaths for the first three months of this year was 4 percent lower than 575 logged in the same period of 2021.

The opioid epidemic has been a near-constant point of emphasis for the Legislature and executive branch since Baker took office in early 2015, but the number of annual opioid overdose deaths here has increased more than 30 percent since that year. After taking a big step up from 1,747 overdose deaths in 2015 to 2,110 deaths in 2016, the annual number of fatal overdoses has remained mostly stagnant, according to DPH.