INTERVIEW – MARYLAND DELEGATE DAN MORHAIM  — D-Baltimore County

• A Md Congressman has proposed drug-consumption facilities in the state, allowing illegal drug use in certain spaces. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Illegal-drug users in Maryland could partake in recreational use under a bill that would create legal, sanitary illicit-drug use facilities in the state. The bill, proposed by Delegate Dan Morhaim, D-Baltimore County, would create an overdose-prevention and safer drug-consumption program allowing drug users to legally ingest their narcotics under supervision of trained professionals and staff, in clean facilities. “Let me be real clear, I’m not for substance abuse. It’s a bad thing,” said Morhaim, a board-certified physician with years working in emergency care. “I’ve seen the ravages, but we’ve been doing this for 50 years, and tried all these things. And after 50 years, there’s not one data point that is better.” In fact, opioid-related fatalities are on the rise, with more than 1,000 deaths in 2015 alone in Maryland, according to a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene report on drug- and alcohol-related deaths.