Baltimore Students Create An App To Detect If Their Heroin Is Laced With Fentanyl

If you have a smartphone, you’ve probably heard the distinct sound of an AMBER alert and or perhaps weather notifications.These notifications are free and great, alerting us to potential danger, and what we need to do to prepare.

With the help of student programmers, Baltimore health officials have launched a similar notification service, but it’s to warn residents in the city when a deadly batch of drugs enters their neighborhood. Mike LeGrand, co-founder of the nonprofit Code in the Schools, worked with a team of student programmers around Baltimore to develop ‘Bat Batch Alert‘, an anonymous free text messaging service aimed at helping those struggling with heroin addiction to stay alive.

LeGrand got the idea of ‘Bad Batch Alert’, after he lost a close friend in Florida to an opioid overdose. With a grant from Baltimore City’s health department and data feeds from Emergency medical services (EMS), LeGrand was able to track the “hot spots of fentanyl overdoses” across the city.

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