The mass casualty event in Penn North that saw at least 25 people hospitalized on Thursday underscored the persistence of Baltimore’s overdose crisis, despite a recent drop citywide. In 2025, overdoses in the city continue to decline after a significant drop last year,

Baltimore City community partners handed out Narcan after more than two dozen people were hospitalized from a suspected drug overdose.

More than two dozen people were taken to the hospital Thursday after an apparent mass overdose in Baltimore, the local firefighters union said on social media. The fire department responded “to a mass casualty incident involving multiple individuals exhibiting overdose symptoms” in the Penn-North neighborhood Thursday morning,