Another Year Of Devastating Overdoses In Baltimore
Last year, I hid behind an abandoned building in East Baltimore with three guys who all used heroin together as they tested their drugs, injected them, and made sure they were there for each other in case any of them overdosed.
It was about 8AM in the middle of January 2020, sunny but cold, and “D”—Black, in his late thirties, without a home, and requesting anonymity for obvious reasons—held court behind a vacant rowhouse. D saw to it that he and his friends were as safe as possible—he’s more fastidious and more experienced than the others. Heroin had been part of his life for about 20 years.
“I’ve been using off and on,” D explained to me. “Mostly on.”
Most mornings back then, D and his friends looked out for one another because they understood that they were most likely to overdose when they used alone.