Home → Governor Mills: Preventing addiction, persevering through this opioid epidemic, and achieving our full promise as a people and a place. Governor Mills: Preventing addiction, persevering through this opioid epidemic, and achieving our full promise as a people and a place. July 30, 2021 The US CDC recently reported that more than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses nationwide last year, a staggering record reflecting the coronavirus pandemic’s toll on efforts to quell the opioid crisis and the continued spread of illegal fentanyl in the narcotic supply. Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills. Thank you for listening. Here in Maine, the Attorney General’s Office disclosed that 504 people died from opioid overdose in 2020, a 33 percent increase over the year before. More than 300 of those deaths were due to fentanyl, a 30 percent increase over the year before. Sadly, those numbers have not improved to date this year.