Shortly after he was elected, Gov. Larry Hogan convened a high-level task force to address opioid addiction and overdoses in Maryland, and he eventually declared a state of emergency because of the problem. Yet the toll addiction has taken on communities across the state — urban, rural and suburban — remains unabated. The number of overdose deaths in the first three months of 2017 — the most recent data available — is more than double that from the same period in 2014, the year before Mr. Hogan took office. This isn’t just a Maryland problem, of course; addiction and overdoses have skyrocketed nationwide. But the fact remains that what we’re doing about the problem isn’t enough.

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As an emergency physician, I have seen the human cost of gun violence.

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In this issue:

• Note from the Commissioner
• Hundreds of Seniors Join Mayor Pugh, the Health Department, and Rec & Parks for National Senior Health and Fitness Day in Patterson Park
• Clinical Director Named President-Elect of Maryland Assembly on School-Based Health Centers
• and more

The young woman had pale skin and fire-red hair, and by all appearances was only minutes away from dying from opioid overdose. 

The grim scene unfolded in February, in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia. It’s where the death rate from heroin mixed with illicit fentanyl ranks among the highest in the nation, and the sight of young bodies lying prone and unresponsive on the sidewalk has become the new normal for a cluster of impoverished neighborhoods that have already suffered decades of collateral damage from the war on drugs.

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