"Maryland looks to neighboring states for help with heroin trafficking" (Baltimore Business Journal - February 12, 2015)

Friday Feb 13th, 2015

Baltimore is becoming a destination for drug traffickers looking to take advantage of rising demand among heroin users. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh on Wednesday announced that Maryland will join a six-state coalition to target a heroin supply line along the East Coast that is driving heroin deaths in Baltimore and throughout the state. Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake have made reducing heroin deaths a priority. The city is looking into training police officers and first responders to carry naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug, and wants to find ways to expand rehabilitation services for users.

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.

Visit the Newsroom