Treatment Funding Down, OD's Up

The Sun's Stephanie Desmond summarizes drug-overdose death stats from UMBC:

"deaths due to drug or alcohol intoxication increased 14 percent in 2006, compared with those in the previous year. Most of the increase was in deaths associated with multi-drug combinations. Cocaine-associated deaths in conjunction with opioids increased more than 100 percent from 2005 to 2006 and fentanyl-associated deaths increased by 200 percent ... heroin deaths have dropped sharply since the late 1990s, but still make up more than three-quarters of the drug deaths in the city. In the meantime, methadone deaths have more than tripled since the late 1990s. There were 283 heroin deaths in the city in 1999, as compared with 150 in 2006. During the same period, methadone deaths jumped from 16 to 61."

The Health Department says that 2005 had the fewest OD's in a decade. Between 1996 and 2005, drug-treatment funding tripled, thanks largely to George Soros' Open Society Institute. But after 2005, funding began to decline, apparently: while the CP reported that there were 8,295 treatment slots in '05, there are 7,250 today. Most drug-treatment money does not come from the city but from the state and non-profit donations.