Baltimore drug, alcohol deaths far exceed nation as a whole

For more than a decade, Baltimore?s death rate from drug and alcohol abuse has been three to four times higher than that of the nation as a whole, says a long-term city Health Department report.

In six of the 12 years from 1995 through 2006, drugs and alcohol proved more lethal than violence, as intoxication-related deaths exceeded the number of homicides, according to the report.