Prosecutorial policy rooted in the decades-old War on Drugs is all but guaranteed to undermine Baltimore's overdose crisis response for another four years, foreshadowing innumerable preventable deaths and widespread suffering.
The grim prospects come after State's Attorney Ivan Bates, who has prioritized drug busts and drama during his tenure, filed to run for re-election on Feb. 11. Less than two weeks later, the deadline for other candidates to file expired on Feb. 24. No other candidates, neither Republican nor Democrat, decided to take on the incumbent— an illustration of both shameful cowardice and blind loyalty to the carceral state.
"We have been blessed to have achieved historic declines in homicides and non-fatal shootings annually," Bates wrote on X, touting a recent endorsement from U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume. "That is why I decided to run for re-election, to continue making progress in the City I love. We are not yet where we need to be, but we are far from where we were before."
Indeed, we are far from where we need to be. And as stated, the city has made progress. So, why didn't leftists in the city—or at least individuals to the left of this drug warrior—put forward a candidate that has at least an iota of respect for human rights and reformative justice?
Logan Hullinger
Instead, the city may be left with Bates, whose decision to take credit for declines in violent crime is inherently flawed and reminiscent of comments from other city officials about recent historic decreases in fatal overdose rates.
Violent crime and fatal overdoses have plummeted nationwide, so it'd be foolish to attribute the downward trends to city-specific policies. That's particularly true for Bates, who has made it three years into his term without spearheading any notable policies.
Local data, however, sheds light on where his priorities lie.
For the better part of a decade, drug-related arrests and charges plummeted in Baltimore. At first glance, it appeared as though the War on Drugs had lost its steam.
Although racial disparities in arrests worsened under both Bates and former State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby—the percentage of those arrested who were Black reached as high as 96% in some years—it wasn't until he took office that arrests began to trend upward.
In Bates’s first year in office in 2023, all drug charges surged to 4,913, a 91% increase over the year prior. Misdemeanor drug charges, which were the subject of the de facto decriminalization policy, increased nearly 20-fold.
So, why are we allowing moderate, drug-war-loving prosecutors to remain at the helm of the city's criminal "justice" system as law enforcement targets low-level drug crimes through initiatives that disproportionately impact Black residents?
One may question how the city's prosecutor dictates policing, but the answer is found within the de facto decriminalization policy. Back then, cops knew that low-level drug crimes wouldn't be prosecuted, therefore dissuading them from making arrests.
On the other hand, Bates' decision to rescind the policy immediately upon taking office sent a clear signal to the city's corrupt cops: Catch someone on drug charges, and we'll crack down in the courtroom.
Logan Hullinger
The Baltimore Police Department's annual arrest report backs this up, showing that it broke 2,000 drug-related arrests for the first time since 2019, with his tenure reversing a decades-long trend of declining drug policing.
Bates has insisted that incarceration isn't his goal, repeatedly referring to his citation docket program. The program aims to hold people accountable while offering them social services, with jail time and fines used only when individuals fail to complete community service opportunities.
In practice, citations have rarely been used. And Bates’ office has refused to answer any questions about the program, including how many people his office has connected to services, how many citations actually get on the docket and whether there's any indication that the program has been successful.
The silence is deafening: Bates doesn't care about diversion or justice. He simply cares about numbers, even if those numbers come from helping lock up drug users and other vulnerable populations.
His unchallenged candidacy, therefore, is troubling.
Elections for positions such as state's attorney must serve as a collaborative effort between the harm reduction movement and criminal justice reform—two life-saving areas of activism that fight both the War on Drugs and the prison-industrial complex. As the cops crack down harder and jail cells get fuller, it is incumbent upon those in these movements to act up.
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This means direct action. This means rallying to protect our most vulnerable through mutual aid and other avenues. And it also means ensuring that no one like Ivan Bates can attain office again.
With an unscrupulous police force running roughshod in the city and fanning the flames of the drug war, a primary challenger from the left was perhaps the final chance to bring some semblance of sanity back to the city's criminal "justice" system.
Sure, the term "progressive prosecutor" is problematic because no individual tasked with upholding the punishment bureaucracy is a true progressive. But as former State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby demonstrated, a top prosecutor can push back against the worst the system has to offer—things Bates happily upholds.
A single-candidate race, at the end of the day, isn't only a slap in the face to democracy; it's a deadly disservice to drug users and other vulnerable populations. Without dramatic reforms, their lives are confined to jail cells, a lack of health care access and no autonomous rights.
The abolition of the carceral system, the drug war and the current neoliberal regime are likely the ultimate solution. Until then, however, voters at least deserve some alternatives.
Read the last Redux Newsletter: "Deadly adulterants have proliferated as drug-war policing escalates in Baltimore"
As the Baltimore Police Department cracks down harder on those who use drugs, the supply that they claim to be targeting has become increasingly unpredictable and deadly.
About 10.5% of drug samples in Baltimore contained medetomidine, a veterinary sedative, in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to a report earlier this month from the state's Rapid Analysis of Drugs, or RAD, program. As of the first quarter of the year, no samples contained the drug, and just 1.3% contained medetomidine in the second quarter. State health officials have acknowledged that the drug supply shifting to a dangerous sedative can be attributed to interdiction.
"Although veterinary sedatives are not new to the drug supply, their increasing presence may complicate overdose prevention and response strategies,” according to one RAD newsletter. "The emergence of medetomidine in Maryland coincides with a reduction in xylazine that followed the scheduling of xylazine in Pennsylvania and Virginia."
Read the full newsletter here.
Mobtown Redux's Overdose Data has been updated with the latest local, state and national data
There were 585 overdose deaths in Baltimore in 2025, marking a historic 24.7% decrease from the year prior, according to preliminary data from the Maryland Department of Health.
That death toll will likely change as causes of death are finalized, but the decline mirrors the downward trend seen nationally. This was the second consecutive year that Baltimore saw a notable decrease in deaths; there were 777 deaths — a 25.5% decrease from the year prior — in 2024.
The numbers indicate that the city's fatal overdose rate continues to trend downward after years of climbing, with the death toll twice surpassing 1,000 people.
However, the preliminary data also shows that low-income Black neighborhoods in West Baltimore continue to see the highest death rates. Those same neighborhoods are also the most heavily policed, with residents significantly more likely to be arrested on drug charges.
Check out Mobtown Redux's Overdose Data Dashboard here.
Click here to learn more about harm reduction resources in the Baltimore area.
Filter: "Beyond the Panic: A Harm Reduction Lens for Teen Drug Use"
Adolescent drug use often triggers moral panics, fear-mongering and the passage of draconian laws to “keep the kids safe” by putting their caregivers in prison. A “troubled-teen” industry preys on parents desperate to help their kids at any cost—subjecting young people whose drug use is deemed problematic to abstinence-only “tough love” and isolating, abusive “boot camps.”
Harm Reduction Approaches With Adolescents Who Use Substances, a new book by Amanda Reiman and Barry Lessin, is a much-needed corrective to conventional, violent and failed ways of working with young people who use drugs. They dismantle the cruel and ineffective concepts of tough love and zero tolerance. They critique the disease theory of addiction, detailing why it can’t explain adolescent drug use and causes enormous harm.
The authors make a convincing case to stop punishing and shaming adolescents, and instead seek to understand drug use in the context of this developmental life stage. Using the scaffolding of the eight principles of harm reduction, their approach centers on respect, dignity, meeting teens where they’re at, and the nonjudgmental and noncoercive provision of services.
Click here to read the full article.
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