People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.
The city was once hailed for its response to #addiction. But as #fentanyl flooded streets & ofcls shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights.
This is the first part in a series exploring #Baltimore’s overdose crisis.
In the past 6 yrs, nearly 6k lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly DOUBLE that of any other large city, & higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic.
A decade ago, 700 fewer people here were being killed by drugs each year. And when fatalities began to rise from the synthetic #opioid#fentanyl, so potent that even minuscule doses are deadly, #Baltimore’s initial response was hailed as a national model. The city set ambitious goals, distributed #Narcan widely, experimented w/ways to steer people into treatment & ratcheted up campaigns to alert the public.
But then city leaders became preoccupied w/other crises, including #GunViolence & the #pandemic. Many of those efforts to fight overdoses stalled….
Health ofcls began publicly sharing less #data. City Council members rarely addressed or inquired about the growing number of #overdoses. The fact that…[it had become]…so much worse…was NOT KNOWN to the mayor, the deputy mayor…or multiple council members until they were recently shown data compiled by Times/Banner reporters….
@Nonilex
I wonder if Jacksonville FL had anything similar.
Maybe some education or preventive actions could have saved my brother from his fentanyl overdose that killed him.😐
Apparently his regular drug of choice was mixed with it.
@Nonilex This is very on-brand for Baltimore, and of course they have one of the worst police departments in the country, which is saying something. I’m sure that contributed to the crisis.
@Nonilex We are long past the stage where any level of intervention can solve these problems. Why do people drink/use drugs? Because their life is hot garbage and they (justifiably) can't cope.
Fix THAT, and drug use declines rapidly. But no, that would take money and 'giving' people things.