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1 week ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
Four years ago, a headline in The Independent proclaimed, "Baltimore ends war on drugs with plot line straight from The Wire."Aside from the overused and often-irritating reference to "The Wire," the 2021 article highlighted former State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's de facto decriminalization policy. The move marked a historic break from the city's notoriously militarized policing strategy by ending the prosecution of low-level crimes, including misdemeanor drug charges such as possession.
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1 week ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
At first glance, it may seem that the War on Drugs has all but disappeared in Baltimore. The decades-long campaign decimated Black neighborhoods and fueled mass incarceration in the city under the guise of public safety. From more than 7,000 arrests in 2015 to less than 2,000 in 2024, the number of people being arrested for drug crimes has plummeted.
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2 weeks ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
For months, Baltimore had eagerly awaited a ruling by Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill — one that could have forced opioid distributors to bankroll a multi-billion-dollar abatement plan, allowing the beleaguered city to revolutionize its harm reduction and treatment infrastructure. Meanwhile, the city's unprecedented overdose crisis raged on.
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2 weeks ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
A judge has rejected Baltimore’s request for $5.2 billion in abatement money in a long-running opioid lawsuit—dealing a majorblow to its ambitious planto address theoverdose crisis. The June 12 ruling will also allow for a new trial against the two opioid distributors from which Baltimore sought the vast sum, reversing a 2024 decision that won the city $266 million. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence P.
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3 weeks ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
As the War on Drugs carries on in tandem with Baltimore's overdose crisis, the city's perennial dilemma of whether to throw more money at the cops or fund life-saving harm reduction initiatives returned to the spotlight this week. At a Tuesday evening budget hearing, the Baltimore Police Department pleaded for additional money to cover the overtime costs accrued by officers enforcing prohibition, with the top brass touting an increase in drug arrests this year.
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4 weeks ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
Sitting alongside city officials and public health workers earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks swore to protect Medicaid as proposed funding cuts threaten to hamper Baltimore's response to the overdose crisis. Yet the moderate Democrat's visit for a panel discussion at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing also came as her party struggles to fend off a much more extensive assault on public health by far-right conservatives.
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1 month ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
As Maryland's fatal overdose rate slows in tandem with a downward trend seen nationally, Gov. Wes Moore signed a budget this week that includes a modest increase in funding for substance use and mental health-related services. The Democrat on Tuesday signed a $67 billion spending plan, which came on the heels of proposed austerity measures at the federal level that threaten to gut Medicaid and public health initiatives nationwide.
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1 month ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
As congressional Republicans face an intra-party scuffle over the extent to which they will decimate public health funding, Medicaid coverage for more than 32,000 low-income Baltimoreans with substance use disorder hangs in the balance. A far-right faction in the U.S. House of Representatives blocked a Medicaid-gutting budget reconciliation bill backed by President Donald Trump on Friday.
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1 month ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
If there's one thing I've learned from covering the harm reduction movement in Baltimore, it's that those on the frontlines don't back down. At the annual Tuerk Conference last month, organizers stood resolutely among a throng of abstinence-based treatment programs to cement themselves as a crucial arm of the city's response to the overdose crisis. And earlier this week, they showed up in numbers at a town hall to press Mayor Brandon Scott and his administration.
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1 month ago | 
mobtownredux.news | Logan Hullinger
When Mayor Brandon Scott signed an executive order creating Baltimore's Opioid Resitution Advisory Board last year, it was hailed as a new chapter in the beleaguered city's fight against a disastrous overdose crisis. The 20-member board, composed of public health experts and those with lived experience in addiction and drug use, would play a key role in determining how hundreds of millions of dollars from opioid-related lawsuits were spent, Scott said.