The number of drug-and alcohol-related deaths in Maryland climbed 37 percent in the first three months of this year, with the biggest increase related to people taking opioids laced with the potent additive fentanyl.

There were 550 overdose deaths, including 372 from fentanyl, a cheap and powerful drug coming into the U.S. from overseas that mixed in with heroin, typically without people knowing, according to data released Friday by the Maryland Department of Health. The number of deaths from fentanyl soared 137 percent from 157 deaths during the same period last year.

The numbers were not surprising to public health officials who said they only expect the problem to get worse.

“We have not even come close to reaching the peak of this epidemic,” said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, who called the numbers “devastating.”

“We just have to double up our efforts,” she said.

Adrienne Breidenstine, a spokeswoman for Behavioral Health System Baltimore, said the organization’s outreach teams continue to see signs of fentanyl, and a second additive called carfentanil, on the streets.The additives are 50 and 100 times more potent than heroin, respectively. It is taking two and sometimes three times the amount of naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses, to revive people who have taken fentanyl, Breidenstine said.

Read the entire story. 

The Baltimore City Health Department is fighting the opioid epidemic any way they can. Now they're using cell phones.

The health department gave Code in the Schools a grant for $4,500, under their TECHealth program, to create Bad Batch Alert.

"I think a lot of people we know have been affected by this problem," Michael LeGrand works with Baltimore City Public School students at Code in the Schools writing the language that makes the service work.

He personally has been affected by the opioid epidemic. His childhood friend Rachel Vicary was smart. She had a degree in Computer Science, and is a chess whiz. She was known in her New York borough as the local mechanic fixing motorcycles.

Read the entire story.

The greatest outrage is directed at Evzio, a high-tech dispenser which "talks" a novice through reversing an overdose.

It cost $690 when it came out in 2014. Now the list price is $4,500 -- an increase of more than 500 percent.

Evzio delivers a dose of naloxone, which blocks the effects of heroin and opioid painkillers, jumpstarting the heart rate and breathing of someone who overdosed.

Cheaper configurations of naloxone exist. It's a generic drug that's been around since the early 1970s.

Read the entire story.

The scale of America’s opioid epidemic is shocking.

It is the deadliest drug overdose crisis in US history. In 2016 alone, drug overdoses likely killed more Americans in one year than the entire Vietnam War. In 2015, drug overdoses topped annual deaths from car crashes, gun violence, and even HIV/AIDS during that epidemic’s peak in 1995. In total, more than 140 people are estimated to die from drug overdoses every day in the US. About two-thirds of these drug overdose deaths are linked to opioids.

Yet so far, there’s been a lack of policy action to end the opioid epidemic. Much of what has been done has focused on reducing the amount of prescription painkillers out there, yet the latest federal data shows prescriptions were still three times what they were in 1999. Other prevention efforts have focused on stopping heroin and fentanyl from entering the US, but they have so far failed to make a dent in the flow of these drugs.

Read the entire story.