Maryland Legislator to Introduce Groundbreaking Harm Reduction Drug Policy Bills to Reduce: Addiction, Deadly Overdose, Spread of Infectious Disease, and Incarceration Rates for Drug-Related Offenses

Proposed Bills Would Provide Treatment-at-Need in ER’s and Hospitals, Decriminalize Small Amounts of All Drugs, Set Up Safe Consumption Programs, and More

As deaths from drug overdoses increase nationwide, Maryland Delegate Dan Morhaim, M.D. - also a practicing physician who has been treating patients in emergency and internal medicine for more than 30 years - will introduce four bills to transform drug policy in the state. This groundbreaking legislative package aims to reduce the harms associated with substance abuse disorders, including rates of addiction, deadly overdose, the spread of infectious disease, crime, costs to the general public, and incarceration rates. (See detailed descriptions of all 4 bills below.)

More Americans now die annually from overdose than gunshot wounds or car crashes. Nearly 47,000 Americans died from a drug overdose in 2014.In Maryland, the Governor’s office has defined the problem as an “epidemic…destroying lives”. There has been a 60% rise in fatal drug and alcohol-related overdoses, and heroin deaths have increased by 186%, from 2010 to 2015 in the state.

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