As opioid deaths plague Baltimore, the city’s strategy is silence

For years, Baltimore’s leaders gave overdoses little public attention, even as the death rate swelled to unprecedented levels. But for a few weeks this summer, it seemed that the city would respond to its drug epidemic with new urgency. The City Council was about to hold four hearings — planned after The New York Times and The Baltimore Banner reported that the overdose rate here was far higher than in any other major American city.