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Quincy police responded to eight opioid overdoses in fewer than 48 hours, including two people who overdosed twice in a 12-hour period.The Patriot Ledger reports Detective Lt. Patrick Glynn said Sunday that six people overdosed in the city between Friday night and Sunday morning, two of whom overdosed twice in the same day.Quincy police used Narcan to reverse six of the overdoses and two did not require the overdose-reversing drug. All six people were taken to Quincy Medical Center, where they were monitored and released. None of the overdoses proved fatal, which Glynn called “the silver lining.”“This is taxing the EMS system,” said Glynn, the head of Quincy’s drug unit and a nationally recognized leader in the use of overdose-reversing drugs by police officers. “Officers are out there at 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon reversing overdoses with no strings attached, and they go back again whenever necessary.”Police sometimes attribute increases in overdoses to a bad batch of heroin distributed by a single dealer, but in this case Glynn said the people who overdosed seemed to have nothing in common.“They were spread over the city, and we can’t put a link together about the source,” he said. “The overdoses seem to come in spurts. Sometimes we’ll see six or eight over 48 hours, and then have nothing for five or six days. It’s something we can’t prepare for.”One person who overdosed told police he mixed his own opiates, Glynn said. He said the people overdosing in Quincy lately have been in their early 20s to early 30s, and late 40s to early 50s. They are split almost evenly between men and wom en.“We’re not sure why we aren’t seeing any in that mid-30s and 40s range,” he said. “Those numbers could change next week.”A quarterly report released by the state in May – the first to include information for all of 2016 – estimates the number of opioid deaths in Massachusetts increased 16 percent from 2015 to 2,069. The increase was recorded despite a dramatic reduction in the number of prescription opioid painkillers being doled out by doctors in the state. The report also found that 69 percent of those who died from opioid use last year had tested positive for fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can be 50 times more potent than heroin.In response, Glynn said police carry stronger doses of Narcan. A single dose now has 4 milligrams of the drug instead of 2 milligrams, and officers often administer two doses of the drug for each overdose.“We’re using more Narcan per overdose, and that’s because of fentanyl and heroin cut with fentanyl,” he said.Glynn said the increase in synthetic opioids on the street has forced police to reevaluate procedures, including how to handle evidence. Coming in contact with just a small amount of the drug could cause an officer to overdose, he said.