The state plans to spend more than $8 million over the next two years battling opioid abuse and drug overdoses, the leading cause of injury-related deaths in Hawaii.

The Department of Health said it received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of more than $1 billion in opioid grants to help states “combat the crisis in the nation.” About 60 percent of the money will go toward prevention programs, while the remainder will be used for opioid addiction treatment.

In 2016, there were 77 opioid-related deaths­­­ in Hawaii, or 5.2 deaths per 100,000 people, significantly less the national rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000.

Still, overdose deaths that involve prescription opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone, morphine and fentanyl account for nearly a quarter of all fatal injuries statewide.

Edward Mersereau, chief of DOH’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division, said in a news release,“In Hawaii, we all know a relative or friend who has been affected by drug misuse or addiction, including those who were taking a prescribed opioid as directed for pain relief.

“The social, economic and health disparities in our state, including access to behavioral health care, also make us particularly vulnerable to opioid and other drug misuse,” Mersereau said.

A previous $4 million federal grant was used to develop the Hawaii Opioid Initiative action plan to “aggressively counteract the misuse of opioids and other prevalent drugs,” including methamphetamine. Strategies may include improving prescribing practices by medical providers and insurance companies for addictive drugs, increasing access to substance abuse treatment and boosting public education programs to prevent excessive opioid use.

There were approximately 717,000 opioid prescriptions issued in Hawaii in 2014, compared with 646,000 in 2015, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a decrease of about 71,000 in a year’s time.

Hawaii law limits patients suffering from chronic pain to prescriptions providing medication for only 30 days at a time, while CDC guidelines for primary-care physicians limit the dosage to no more than 90 morphine milligram equivalents.

Federal officials are also seeking to reduce the production of pharmaceutical narcotics.

Nationwide, opioid prescriptions dropped by 21 percent from January 2017 through August, while the number of prescriptions for naloxone, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, rose 264 percent.