Montgomery County reports drop in overdose deaths, approves JUUL/Altria funds for youth vaping prevention and community grants

County Health Officer Dr. Keisha Davis told a Montgomery County Council committee that drug-induced mortalities and fentanyl-related deaths in the county declined in calendar year 2024 and presented county data and program updates for adolescent substance use and overdose response.

The report showed 83 fatal overdoses in 2024 across all ages, 81 percent of those decedents were male, and county health staff said the county saw an approximately 40 percent decrease in fatal overdoses and a 52 percent decrease in fentanyl fatalities compared with the prior year. Dr. Davis cautioned the numbers are drawn from multiple sources — the Maryland Department of Health chief medical examiner data, EMS, hospital emergency records and other surveillance systems — and called the presentation “just scratching the surface on the data that’s available.”

The county highlighted that overdose fatalities among people under 20 remained a suppressed count (fewer than 11 in 2023 and in 2024), and that emergency-room opioid-related visits rose in 2023 and decreased overall in 2024, except for an increase in the 15–17 age group. Health staff also reported demographic patterns: Hispanic and Black youth saw higher counts during the 2018–2023 period while white youth showed a sharper decline, and the 55-and-older age group showed an increasing trend separate from youth trends.

Health officials described county treatment and prevention services currently operating or newly launched: a residential youth withdrawal management program that opened under contract Aug. 31, 2024 (26 youth admitted so far, 15 from Montgomery County; reported completion rate about 77 percent and average stay about 14 days; the program was male-only until it opened to all referrals the week after the meeting); an intensive outpatient program (“Journeys” in Rockville); a Suburban Hospital Addiction Treatment Center early-intervention contract; a Shepherd Prep Adolescent Clubhouse for family and peer support; an emergency prevention-and-intervention outreach contract (started Feb. 14 of last year) that has reached about 1,100 people and provided intensive case management to 40 youth (34 referred to substance use treatment and 14 to mental-health providers); and a Child and Adolescent Assessment Services team that screened roughly 227 youth in the first two quarters of fiscal 2025.

Sarah Rose, director of the Local Behavioral Health Authority, described the residential program and its recent expansion: “This is our residential substance use treatment program, for withdrawal management services for youth. This contract began on Aug. 31, 2024,” and she said the county worked with the Maryland Behavioral Health Administration to obtain licensing variances while the youth program was brought back into operation.

Officials also outlined prevention work and cross-sector coordination: the county’s overdose-prevention team (a state-required multidisciplinary body chaired by the local health department), the Alcohol and Other Drug Addiction Advisory Council (a county board/commission with prescribed membership categories), and an overdose fatality review team that reviews deaths to recommend system safeguards. Prevention programs cited include school-based life-skills curricula (Botvin LifeSkills) already in several middle schools, the Be The 1 Youth Ambassador program (53 youth ambassadors in 13 schools), and a variety of county and community-based outreach initiatives targeting identified high-impact ZIP codes such as Silver Spring, Wheaton and parts of East County (20906, 20902).

The committee then considered a supplemental appropriation of JUUL/Altria settlement funds intended for vaping remediation and prevention. County staff described a proposal to allocate settlement proceeds to three areas: $250,000 for RecMode’s Beyond the Gloves mentorship/fitness and youth development programming, $100,000 for the Street Outreach Network to expand daily outreach and after-school programming in East County and the Enclave community, and up to $130,000 in community awards (competitive grants to a small number of organizations) for vaping cessation, mental-health supports and substance-use prevention targeted to high-impact areas. Staff said the county expects to receive a total of roughly $4.15 million from the settlements, has received about $3.1 million so far, and anticipates additional JUUL payments through 2026; as of the meeting night the December 2024 JUUL payment had not yet been received.

Committee members asked how one-time settlement dollars will be spent to produce sustainable outcomes, how awardees will be selected and evaluated, whether the funded programs capture cessation and pre-/post-intervention data, and whether investments would expand the county’s tobacco-cessation program. County staff said the community-award process will require evaluation and data reporting and that grants-management and DHHS staff will convene review panels that include community members; they also said future appropriations could expand county-run cessation services.

Following discussion, a member asked for a motion “to approve the appropriations as requested.” A motion was made, seconded, and the committee chair called the question. The committee approved the appropriation; the meeting record shows the vote was unanimous and that the appropriation will proceed to implementation steps with grant solicitation and award timelines projected at approximately 8–16 weeks from approval.

Why it matters: County officials said the decreases in fatalities and in fentanyl deaths are encouraging but do not eliminate the need for continued prevention, treatment capacity, and outreach. Health staff emphasized preventive work — earlier and culturally targeted education, family supports, and use of data to follow shifting geographic and demographic patterns — as central to ongoing strategy.

The office of grants management and county behavioral health staff said they will release a notice of funding opportunity and seek proposals from nonprofit organizations with established youth engagement capacity; awards would prioritize work in the named high-impact communities and programs that demonstrate youth engagement, family support, and measurable prevention outcomes.

The committee closed the item after a unanimous affirmative vote to appropriate the funds and to proceed with the described grant and contracting steps.