But it was not alcohol that made her son so woozy. It was methadone, and it killed him.

Raymond DeLucca was one of 168 people to die of drug overdoses in New Hampshire last year. That was more than the number killed in car crashes. More than half the drug deaths involved methadone, and an alarming eight happened in Laconia, a town of about 17,000.

"After about the fifth one, we had a meeting and said this is crazy," Police Chief Michael Moyer said.

Nationwide, methadone deaths are increasing at a faster rate than any other drug-related deaths, the National Center for Health Statistics reported in February. According to the most recent data available, the number of methadone deaths nationwide rose from 786 in 1999 to 4,462 in 2005, a nearly sixfold increase. By comparison, fatal cocaine overdoses rose 63 percent, from 3,832 to 6,228.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey had much lower rates of methadone deaths in 2005 (0.9 per 100,000 population in both states, compared with 1.5 per 100,000 nationally). Over the same six-year period, however, the number of Pennsylvania deaths jumped tenfold, a far greater increase than nationally. New Jersey's rose threefold.

Best known as a prescription drug that curbs heroin addiction, methadone has been increasingly prescribed as a pain medication. Officials say those pills have led to the rise in deaths.

Methadone is cheaper than other prescribed painkillers and is easily diverted to the black market. In many cases, it is being stolen in transit between manufacturers and pharmacies. And some patients with prescriptions sell or share their pills.

Although methadone does not itself produce a high, it is often combined with other drugs in hopes of creating one. But for someone with low tolerance, even small doses can be dangerous. Methadone is particularly hazardous because of the slow rate with which it is metabolized.

In some states, including Maine and New Hampshire, methadone has become the leading cause of drug-related deaths, overtaking even cocaine and heroin. That is prompting some police and prosecutors to get tough.

In New Hampshire, four people have been charged in connection with DeLucca's death, and a task force is investigating Laconia's seven other deaths in hopes of bringing charges.

Gail DeLucca said she realizes that her son was not blameless - she knew he had a drug problem - but she wants the others involved to be held accountable. The methadone that killed him was obtained illegally from a friend who had bought it from a local couple, she said.

"It was a bad choice, and he paid for it with his life," she said. But "the other people made a bad choice in selling it, and now it's their turn to pay for what they did."