Baltimore’s may­or wants a super­vised drug injec­tion site in his city to lim­it over­dos­es

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Baltimore’s mayor wants a supervised drug injection site in his city to limit overdoses

Baltimore’s may­or announced his inten­tions to bring a super­vised drug injec­tion site to his city dur­ing his sec­ond term as a way to lim­it over­dos­es. 

May­or Bran­don Scott told local media affil­i­ates of his desire to bring such a site to the Charm City after vis­it­ing a loca­tion in New York City that pro­vid­ed addict­ed drug users a con­trolled and mon­i­tored area to use ille­gal drugs. Scott sup­port­ed the program’s ideals and tout­ed that it was an effec­tive mod­el of what he hoped would even­tu­al­ly be built in Bal­ti­more, accord­ing to reports. 

“This is some­thing that we want to bring to Bal­ti­more,” Scott told WBAL-TV. 

Accord­ing to gov­ern­ment data, a major­i­ty of Maryland’s drug over­dos­es hap­pen in the geo­graph­i­cal area that includes Bal­ti­more. In 2020, near­ly 60% of all over­dose deaths in the state occurred in “Bal­ti­more City, Bal­ti­more Coun­ty, and neigh­bor­ing Anne Arun­del Coun­ty.”

Baltimore’s over­dose rates were at cri­sis lev­els, and the city expe­ri­enced more of its cit­i­zens dying from drug over­dos­es than any oth­er city in the coun­try in recent years. In 2022, drug over­dos­es decreased in the state. How­ev­er, Bal­ti­more still account­ed for “over 38% of statewide over­dose deaths.” The city only makes up about 9% of Maryland’s pop­u­la­tion. 

Scott believes a philo­soph­i­cal shift is need­ed to com­bat the city’s over­dose prob­lem. He sug­gest­ed that the first part of solv­ing the cri­sis is their sur­vival and ensur­ing they are safe and alive.

“In order for us to get peo­ple the treat­ment that they need – and when they’re ready for it – and to get them into the places and spaces they need, the first thing they have to do is be alive,” said Scott.

Scott believes a drug injec­tion site will help accom­plish that.

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Regard­ing the OnPoint NYC facil­i­ty Scott vis­it­ed, U.S. News and World Report revealed that more than “2,300 peo­ple have uti­lized the over­dose pre­ven­tion center’s ser­vices approx­i­mate­ly 55,000 times.” Addi­tion­al­ly, at the facil­i­ty, there have been “more than 700 over­dose inter­ven­tions and zero deaths.”

“These pub­lic health-based approach­es that have worked in coun­tries all over the world and are now work­ing in places like New York should be brought here,” Scott said to WBAL-TV.