Baltimore Leads Major US Cities in Overdose Deaths

Baltimore leads the country's major cities in fatal overdoses according to a new study from The New York Times and The Baltimore Banner that examines the city's death rate from 2018 to 2022.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 6,000 people in Baltimore, a city with a population of about 570,000 people, died from a fatal drug overdose from 2018 to 2022 for a rate of 170 fatal overdose deaths per 100,000 people, almost double the rate of the two major cities with the next-highest rates: Knoxville, Tennessee, with 86 deaths per 100,000, and Nashville, Tennessee, with 81 deaths per 100,000.

Baltimore's fatal overdose rate has quadrupled in the last 10 years, rising from about 40 deaths per 100,000 people in 2013 to 170 in 2022, far above the national rate. Most of these deaths have been attributed to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

The Times and the Banner also found that the number of Medicaid patients in Baltimore has decreased from 2018 to 2022 despite rising overdose deaths.

Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement: "We have done a great job of trying to focus on multiple epidemics at the same time," noting that the issue "requires a lot, lot more resources" than the city has available.

• Study: Over 320K Children Lost a Parent to Drug Overdose
• Overdose Deaths in the US Declined Last Year