BRIAN WITTE
Associated Press
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — An increase in heroin-related deaths has been described by federal officials as an urgent health crisis around the country, and Maryland is seeing the drug’s scourge in new ways.
Police in Annapolis, Maryland, announced indictments in May for nine people for allegedly selling heroin. Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop says police had not realized the extent that people were coming to the capital of Maryland to buy heroin.
He says the arrests appear to have made a big dent in local heroin activity.
The indictments represent a larger effort statewide to address a rise in fatal overdoses fueled by a spike in heroin. Maryland’s health department also has been working on the problem, which the state’s health secretary describes as an epidemic around the nation.
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