SPRINGFIELD – Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni believes there is some progress in the fight against opioids.

The district attorney made his remarks during a recent interview with Reminder Publishing and Focus Springfield.

“I wouldn’t say we’re winning the battle. We’re still losing two, three and four people a day in Massachusetts on average. We’re losing too many people to say we’re winning a battle. I would say we’re making progress. We’re turning the tide. I think that’s the best way to describe it. We’re still in the midst of a fight and there’s a lot of work to be done. I think unfortunately there is still bit of a long future ahead in terms of this fight, in terms of losing people, a struggle with this epidemic,” he said.

Fatal overdoses are trending slightly downward, he added, which he attributed to efforts as such from his office to make Narcan – the drug that can counter the effects of an opioid overdose – available to first responders.    

Narcan, he said, is “very expensive,” and the program his office runs allows municipalities that may not be able to afford Narcan to have it for first responders. Two partners, CHD and Baystate Health, have made the program possible.

He believes that part of what has been happened has been through educational efforts and noted the program his office maintains of going into middle schools to talk about opioids and addiction.

He recently conducted such a program for seventh and eighth graders in Agawam and explained how when he asked by a show of hands how many of the students have been affected by addiction. “It was a third to 50 percent I would say,” Gulluni noted.

“It’s a prevalent issue and I think they understand the significance of it,” he added.

In courts, he is targeting people seeking to profit from addiction.

Gulluni said that additional staff and bandwidth would allow an even greater response to the opioid epidemic, but like every other government entity he is bound to a set budget.

He said that he has invested “heavily” in his office’s Community Safety and Outreach Unit.

Gulluni said that his recently installed toll-free hotline for people to report incidences of clergy sexual abuse has yielded calls from people.

“There was a call within 24 hours of our announcement,” he said.

Although he said there has been no direct reaction from the Diocese of Springfield he is hoping for a constructive dialogue.

With a media program being planned to address the image of Springfield, Gulluni believes that it’s much of the result of traditional media and social media coverage of the city rather than levels of crime.

“We do have crime, but I think it’s largely consistent with what any city of Springfield’s size has and its economic profile,” he said.

The city is seeing “downward trends, significant downward trends” of crime, Gulluni said.

He stressed that more than 99 percent of the people who live in the city are law-biding citizens and that crime is caused by a small number of people many of whom either have mental health issues or addiction issues.

He said he is very hopeful about the future of the city.

Noting that there were predictions about increased crime around MGM Springfield, Gulluni said what he has seen through arrest reports is what he expected. “Relatively speaking,” Gulluni said, “across the board, they have been relatively minor things.”

He said that outside the casino there has been no uptick in public safety and quality of life issues. Downtown “is a safe place,” he asserted.

Gulluni also called for a new Hampden County Courthouse. He believes the discussion has been accelerated by reports of health issues caused by conditions in the courthouse. The issues need to be vetted by state officials.

Aside from potential health concerns, Gulluni there are space issues as well as security concerns.