More Money, Resources Being Used To Battle Baltimore Drug Problem (WJZ)

Pumping money into the battle of Baltimore’s drug problem.

More cash is pouring onto the streets in an effort to combat what’s already been a deadly summer.

Right now, the raging opioid epidemic claims two lives a day, but authorities have a new targeted approach to save drug users.

The health department is trying to hit the brakes on Baltimore’s drug problem. This time, by putting more outreach workers in neighborhoods to warn and educate.

Littered with needles; haunted by a rising body count.

“The heroin is just tearing **** apart,” said one resident.

On the corner of Ramsey and Monroe, one man leaves the health department’s needle exchange van – asking not to be shown on camera or identified – while telling WJZ’s Kimberly Eiten about his fight to stay sober.

“I’ve been in and out of the systems, to rehabs and rehabs,” he said.

He says it worked, but the opioid epidemic rages on around him.

The south Baltimore intersection is just one in the city seeing a spike in overdoses.

Claiming 700 lives last year, and still killing, on average, two people a day this year.

“Baltimore City is at the epicenter of the epidemic,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen.

Read the entire article. 

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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.”

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