MAINE - With the state on track for a record year for deaths as a result of drug overdoses, Attorney General Janet Mills said on Monday that opiods are "exacting a tremendous toll on our state."

During the first six months of 2016, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner recorded 189 deaths attributable to drug overdoses, according to Dr. Marcella Sorg of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, who analyzes overdose deaths for the Office of the Attorney General. This represents a 50-percent increase over the same six-month period last year, according to a news release issued by the attorney general's office earlier this week.

The increase in the number of deaths is driven by fentanyl, an illicitly manufactured drug that is many times more lethal than morphine. Illicit fentanyl and its chemical analogs caused 44 percent of the related deaths that occurred in Maine between January and June. Fentanyl products are often mixed with or presented to the user as heroin.

In 2015, Maine experienced a total of 272 overdose deaths, 126 in the first half of the year and 146 in the second half, according to statistics provided in the news release. This year’s total may be at least 378 or higher, Mills said. Pharmaceutical painkillers, often trafficked from out of state, have continued to be an "important feature of overdose deaths," Mills said, affecting about 45 percent of the deaths. Pharmaceutical and illicit opioid drugs are often found in combination."

Mills called the situation "distressing."

"People should know there is no safe amount to sniff or shoot," she said. "There is no safe party pill, and combinations can be lethal. If it doesn’t kill you, it will lead to a lifetime of addiction, illness and hopelessness. If a person is tempted to try these drugs, even if they are not thinking of their own well-being, they should be thinking of the well-being of their family, friends and loved ones."

Mills said there is hope for those wrestling with addiction.

"There is hope for persons with substance abuse disorders, if they take the right steps and ask for help," she said. "More importantly, people should not try these drugs in the first place. I hope that more people get the message before another grim record is set in this state."

Mills has sponsored a series of public education TV and radio ads and launched a website, www.doseofrealitymaine.org, to share information about the safe handling and disposal of prescription painkillers, which she said "too often are easily abused and lead to addiction." The Attorney General’s Office has also been distributing naloxone to local law enforcement agencies in recent months so that officers responding to a suspected overdose can administer the opiate overdose antidote. To date, the Office has distributed 866 doses to 26 law enforcement agencies and those agencies have reported administering the naloxone 14 times at overdose scenes.

Like the state, Sanford is seeing a rise in overdoses and fatalities in 2016. According to Deputy Chief Tim Strout, of the Sanford Police Department, there has been 27 opiod-related overdoses in the community since January, and five deaths. In June, firefighters and EMTs responded to six overdoses in less than 24 hours; one of those overdoses resulted in the death of a man in his forties.

Sanford Police Chief Thomas Connolly has applied for state funds to go toward a program to help opiod users overcome their addictions. City Councilor Luke Lanigan said at last week's council meeting that the council's public safety subcommittee had met with Connolly and discussed ways that local addicts with private insurance could get treatment — the idea being that any early local successes with treatment could demonstrate to the state the way that grant money could make a difference here in Sanford.

"We're trying to creatively look at ways to utilize the resources we have here," Lanigan said. "I think we're moving in the right direction to start getting some help for some people."

Gov. Paul LePage held a town hall meeting at Sanford High School last week. During a question-and-answer segment, Marge Trowbridge, of Sanford, asked the governor what needs to be done to stop the heroin crisis. Trowbridge also asked LePage if he felt that Attorney General Mills was doing enough to address the problem.

LePage replied that he and Mills agree on the subject of drug use and trafficking in the state and how it should be handled. He said that the federal government needs to do more to address the problem, and he criticized the state legislature for not supporting a bill he submitted that would have made trafficking a felony that would result in longer prison sentences.

"As long as you keep slapping them on the hand, we don't have the tools to make sure that the traffickers are put in the right place," he said. "Trafficking should not be a misdemeanor."

LePage also said education is important in the fight to end the state's drug crisis.

"We need to get into our middle schools and start educating our kids . . . about how bad drugs are," he said, adding that the longtime DARE program is not enough. "We have to do more. We have to educate parents."