Daily Happenings from poetsareangels

BOSTON — There is staggering new evidence of an overdose epidemic in Massachusetts.

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According to state police, at least 185 people died of heroin overdoses across in the last four months. That number does not include the state’s three largest cities, which keep their own records: Boston, Springfield, Worcester.

George Fiske of Brockton knows the pain of losing a loved one to the drug. His son, Lance, 22, died in 2009 of a heroin overdose.

“People need to know it affects all walks of life, whether you’re rich or poor,” Fiske said. “It’s just not people on the streets.”

Police attribute the rise in heroin deaths to suppliers cutting the drugs with synthetic substances, a more potent strain of heroin, and the fact that it’s cheaper than some other drugs.

For Fiske, the future that heroin robbed from his son will always haunt him.

“You just wonder what he would have been,” Fiske said. “I’ll just never know.”