Earlier in July, Baltimore experienced a severe local crisis when 27 people in the Penn North neighbourhood were hospitalized after a mass drug overdose, with five people in critical condition. The overdoses are suspected to be caused by opioid-type drugs, which were likely distributed as free “tester” samples by local dealers. However, officials have not yet disclosed the substances involved.
Initially, the Baltimore fire department responded “to a mass casualty incident involving multiple individuals exhibiting overdose symptoms,” according to the International Association of Fire Fighters’ Baltimore. Subsequently, the Baltimore Mayor’s Office has turned to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for help, with NIST’s Rapid Drug Analysis and Research program working to determine the composition of the drugs that caused the mass overdose. The program was created with the purpose to trace illicit drug residue samples and analyze them for emerging substances.
In his interview with WYPR, Edward Sisco, a research chemist for NIST’s Rapid Drug Analysis and Research program, said that his lab often sees synthetic opioids as the culprit behind overdoses. “Fentanyl is obviously a big one, and is usually the number one or number two drug we see in terms of prevalence, and you see a couple other fentanyl analogs that pop up, things like Fluorofentanyl and Carfentanil,” he said.
“Our concentration the first two days was to educate the community, let them know about the event, what happened, and to spread harm reduction messaging around,” she said. “The rest of the weekend we’re going to continue to do canvassing, putting out information, spreading harm reduction supplies, Naloxone and test strips and continue to connect folks to resources,” Sara Whaley, the city’s director of overdose response, told WYPR.
Over the course of the last decades, the U.S. has witnessed significant increases in the number of drug overdoses, which rose by 500% between 1999 and 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Over this time period, the CDC has identified three waves of predominant causes: the first involving prescription opioids, the second heroin, and most recently synthetic opioids.
