Heroin Overdoses to be Tallied: Harford Sheriff

Officials are tallying heroin overdoses in Harford County in a new way, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler announced Monday.

The number of nonfatal and fatal heroin overdoses will soon be displayed on 4-by-8-foot signs outside the Harford County Sheriff’s Office in an effort to raise awareness.

“As I travel around the county and state and talk about these issues, it’s clear that some people still do not understand how large of a problem this is for our communities...” Gahler said at a press conference Monday.

This year, 23 people have died from heroin overdoses in Harford County, he reported on Monday, Nov. 16.

There have been 152 nonfatal overdoses, he said.

Signs showing these numbers will be placed at the Harford County Sheriff’s Office headquarters in Bel Air and precincts in Jarrettsville and Edgewood. The idea is ”so the public can better understand just how deadly heroin addiction is and that if you try it just once you are likely signing over your entire life to this deadly drug,” Gahler said.

The trend so far this year show that heroin-related deaths will outpace last year; in 2014, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported there were 23 heroin-related fatal overdoses countywide.

For 2015, Gahler said that heroin-related deaths will outnumber traffic fatalities and homicides combined.

“Too often we want to hide from the fact that heroin is negatively impacting our community, and it is more prevalent than in recent memory and touches everyone,” Gahler said. “It’s a ‘dirty little secret’ that if we don’t talk about it and address it, it will continue to overtake our community.”

In addition to the signs, which are designed to raise awareness, Gahler said lawmakers plans to introduce three bills this session in Annapolis to help “stem the tide” of heroin in Harford.

• Delegate Kathy Szeliga is drafting one bill that would require medical professionals to report heroin overdoses to law enforcement, so investigators may have real-time data leading them to the source of the drugs.
• Szeliga is proposing a second bill that would require people administering Narcan, which reverses the effects of an overdose, to report each use. There is a “growing number [of addicts] in need of a second dose,” after they have had the first, Szeliga said.
• Delegate Andrew Cassilly is also planning to introduce a bill, cosponsored by Szeliga, which would enact harsher penalties for those trying to sell drugs within 1,000 feet of methadone clinics and other certified treatment facilities. Officials said this was similar to laws that have stronger punishments for selling drugs around schools. “These dealers prey on those seeking treatment and the message needs to be sent that this will not be tolerated,” Cassilly said in a statement.

Screenshot from Harford County Sheriff’s Office/YouTube video.