Commentary

Once upon a time, in a place called Annapolis, the end of the annual confab by state lawmakers was met with cheers. Not the confetti-and-balloon whoop-de-do presided over by the late Mikes — those legendary legislative leaders Busch and Miller now the stuff of history — but the sense of shared relief from everyday Annapolis. Nothing against state lawmakers from far-flung parts of Maryland. Many of them are genuinely nice people. There just always was a sense of emerging from 90 days in the bunker after Sine Die — loosely, Latin for till next time — was declared.

As the CEO of a 2,000-plus person Maryland-based company involved in the COVID-19 response, I have a high tolerance for the obligations that come with it — like spending endless hours trying to explain complicated manufacturing processes to reporters who just learned we existed. Or battling back the misinformation that is used to find fault with the people who are the spine of our nation’s world-leading response to this pandemic. But it pains me to watch how this negative attention affects our workforce. We talk about front line health care workers a lot, as we should. They are extraordinary, and we could not have done this without them this past year.

The Anne Arundel County Health Department employees who decided to distribute crack pipes in a largely Black neighborhood of Annapolis meant well. They were caught, however, in the sharp-toothed gap between those who see drug use as a public health crisis, those who see it as a crime and those still feeling the wounds of America’s war on drugs. And because the cost of that war, started through fear and ignorance in the 1980s, fell hardest on the Black community, the poorly communicated plan to address the spread of disease from shared pipes for smoking crack, heroin and meth angered and shocked many. Regardless of this bollocked campaign, the tide of public policy is irrevocably shifting toward treating drug abuse as a health issue.

County Executive Steuart Pittman acknowledged Tuesday that “more listening needs to happen” after an Anne Arundel program stopped handing out crack pipes to Annapolis residents last week following a backlash in the Black community. Pittman said he knows about and supports programs like AA Power, established by the county Health Department 18 months ago to offer education and supplies aimed at reducing the health risks faced by people with drug addictions. It connects people with treatment and mental health services in Annapolis and north county.

How often have you heard that our most vulnerable populations are desperately seeking access to the COVID vaccine? Almost never? Instead, the prevailing narrative is that people who are Black or impoverished or isolated or elderly or homeless or who use various drugs and so forth are suspicious of, and resistant to, the vaccine. There is, of course, some truth to this narrative. For a variety of reasons, many people in these groups and others are not yet ready to get a vaccine. Many will require discussion and outreach from trusted sources to make a well-informed decision. They deserve that and should receive these services and much more.