Boston Police 'Drug-Related Illness' Reports Are Up 29% This Year, Already More Than Any Full Year Since 2023; South Boston's More Than Doubled
Police logged 879 such reports from January through October. More than half came from the South Boston and South End districts.
Original reporting from public records by Watchman Report staff ·
Boston police filed 879 incident reports classified as "Sick Assist - Drug Related Illness" from January through October this year, up from 681 in the same months of 2025, an increase of about 29%, according to Watchman Report's analysis of the Boston Police Department's public Crime Incident Reports dataset. The count was 618 for the same period of 2024 and 668 in 2023.
This year's ten-month total already exceeds every full year in the current dataset, which begins in 2023: 793 reports in 2023, 710 in 2024 and 802 in 2025.
The largest increase was in police district C-6, South Boston, where reports rose from 106 to 226, more than double. District D-4, the South End, again had the most, 268, up from 229. Together the two districts accounted for 494 of the 879 reports, about 56%. Reports also rose in B-2, Roxbury (86 to 104), A-1, Downtown (83 to 102), and E-13, Jamaica Plain (25 to 47), and fell in several districts, including D-14, Brighton (35 to 27), C-11, Dorchester (33 to 23), and E-18, Hyde Park (15 to 8).
Monthly counts this year ran above last year's in every month from January through August, peaking at 110 in June, before falling below 2025 levels in September (97 vs. 110) and October (81 vs. 95).
The category records police responses in which officers assisted someone sick from drug use. It is not a count of overdoses or deaths, and changes can reflect where and how often officers respond and how reports are classified, as well as drug use itself. Figures can change as reports are added or reclassified.
Watchman Report queried the Boston Police Department's "Crime Incident Reports (2023 to Present)" dataset on Analyze Boston (updated Nov. 3, 2026, with incidents through Nov. 1) for offense code 1832, "SICK ASSIST - DRUG RELATED ILLNESS," and counted reports by the dataset's own YEAR, MONTH and DISTRICT fields for January through October of 2023-2026, plus full calendar years 2023-2025. Each report has a unique incident number. All counts, percentages and shares are Watchman Report's calculations. District names are from the Boston Police Department's districts page. No individuals are named.
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