Posted on 05/21/25
| News Source: FOX45
Baltimore, MD - May 21, 2025 - The Baltimore City government is expanding its drug harm reduction efforts, featuring a free vending machine stocked with drug paraphernalia.
Harm reduction is a policy approach that focuses on limiting the spread of disease and rate of overdose deaths stemming from drug use. Traditional harm reduction methods include the distribution of naloxone and clean needles.
The Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) partnered with Charm City Care Connection (CCCC), a taxpayer-funded nonprofit, to install a harm reduction vending machine in East Baltimore. The machine contains clean needles, fentanyl tests, naloxone,” and more, which can be obtained free-of-charge, 24/7.
The harm reduction vending machine appeared to be installed in October 2024, according to CCCC’s social media. Users are granted access to the machine after they create an account with a customized pin through a Google form that asks for their gender identity, race and date of birth.
A painting on the harm reduction vending machine, pictured directly below the BCHD logo, states, “You don’t have to get clean ... you were never dirty.”
Charles Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who specializes in crime and drug policy. He told Spotlight on Maryland that harm reduction vending machines provide services already available and may send a confusing message to the surrounding community.
“Slapping down a vending machine in the middle of wherever, where people are not using drugs, isn't doing much at the margin except, A: imposing cost, and B: sending a signal, however minor, to the people around you and the people around the vending machine that this is the sort of behavior that the government tacitly condones,” Lehman said.
Baltimore City won nearly $700 million in settlements and jury awards last year from its lawsuits against pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors in response to the opioid crisis. Some of the funds are primed to boost harm reduction efforts.
Mayor Brandon Scott signed an executive order in August 2024 directing the opioid settlement funds towards programs “including but not limited to” harm reduction, treatment and recovery, education on preventing opioid use disorder, and “addressing needs of special populations.”
Mayor Scott announced in December 2024 that the BCHD is set to receive $20 million of the opioid settlement funds, which will be used to help launch the new Division of Overdose Prevention and Harm Reduction.
The mayor announced in June 2024 that CCCC received $5 million of the opioid settlement funds. The funds mark a significant shift for CCCC, as its latest nonprofit tax form showed it had only $1.6 million in funding, 88% of which came from government grants.
“Surprisingly, when the mayor had the press release, that was the first time we had heard we were even considered for any type of financial assistance,” Bakari Atiba, CCCC’s director of Community Engagement, told WYPR radio after the mayor’s announcement.
CCCC provides harm reduction supplies such as needles and “safer smoking kits,” which often include crack and meth pipes. Other free services provided by the organization include showers, laundry, and support groups.
Atiba said there was a need for his organization’s harm reduction vending machine.
“The harm reduction vending machine is helpful because it provides another point of access that an agency or organization cannot provide unless it is open 24 hours,” Atiba told Spotlight on Maryland. “The vending machine is accessible 24 hours a day and the process to use it is extremely low-barrier.”
“We do not encourage people to buy or use drugs,” he continued. "We recognize that people in Baltimore City have been struggling with substance use disorders far before there was a Charm City Care Connection. With that in mind, we seek to meet people where they are at and make sure that they have the education, supplies, and support to be as safe as possible.”
A spokesman for Mayor Scott’s office similarly emphasized that the harm reduction vending machine does not encourage drug use.
“Conflating harm reduction with encouraging illegal drug use is a harmful misrepresentation that stigmatizes life-saving public health strategies and makes it harder for those who are battling substance use disorder to get the assistance and treatment they need,” the spokesman told Spotlight on Maryland. “The vending machine is part of a larger effort to reduce harm, promote health, and provide resources to any community member needing them.”
Overdose deaths in Baltimore City hovered around 1,000 per year from 2020 to 2023, then fell to 775 in 2024, according to the Maryland Department of Health. Baltimore City overdose deaths in 2024 accounted for about 44% of the statewide total.
Mayor Scott pushed Maryland for years to establish supervised drug consumption sites, where people can legally use street drugs in a facility that provides harm reduction services. Legislation that would have established these sites stalled in the Maryland statehouse this year.
CCCC launched a study with Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute last year “seeking to understand the local knowledge and perceived needs” for supervised drug consumption sites.
Lehman said harm reduction services such as needle exchanges and naloxone distribution can benefit communities but must be paired with a sincere effort to get people off intrinsically harmful drugs.
“Harm reduction is kind of a Band-Aid that you're putting on a gaping wound,” he told Spotlight on Maryland. “It's not necessarily going to hurt the wound to put a Band-Aid on, but it's not going to do very much. And so you have to think about more aggressive forms of intervention, because these sort of hands off approaches just don't do anything.”