Motorists in the Benson and Edgewood areas of Harford County drive by two new billboards that are advertising a foreboding message.
The billboards show a young boy with a backpack, alongside a syringe and other drug paraphernalia. A bright-red warning reads, "Talk to your kids before heroin does," while smaller text says: "Harford County kids are trying drugs at age 11."
The stark image, bearing the Harford County seal and County Executive Barry Glassman's name, have been placed on billboards on Route 1, just east of the intersection with the Bel Air Bypass and Route 147 in Benson, west of Bel Air, and on Route 24 near Route 40 in Edgewood.
They are the latest, and perhaps most visible, sign of the Glassman administration's campaign against heroin use, which both Glassman and Gov. Larry Hogan have called an epidemic statewide.
The billboard advertising was bought with a $25,000 federal grant given to the county's Department of Community Services by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, county spokesperson Cindy Mumby said Monday.
The county also hopes to target parents of middle-school students through informational nights and other outreach this fall, Mumby said.
"What we have learned is that kids are starting to use heroin younger than you might think," she said, noting middle-school children in Harford have reported using heroin.
Matt Gardner, an insurance agent at a State Farm business next to the Route 1 Road billboard, said his office staff was intrigued by the ad, especially the blunt image of the drug.
"I thought it was really interesting," he said. "We were all kind of laughing, saying, 'Is this real?'"
Gardner said he thought the county would target older children, as he would not have suspected "kids that young" would be trying heroin.
"It really gets your mind moving in a different manner," he said of the billboard.
Louis Simms, whose son owns the nearby Simms Sports Cards, said he hadn't noticed the new billboard, as he has watched many advertisements cycle in and out on it during his 16 years with the business.
When it was pointed out to him, Simms was skeptical about the message.
"Trouble is, they don't do anything with people pushing it," he said about heroin.
Mumby said abuse of heroin has grown in rural areas, not just in more urban or suburban ones.
"The assumption that heroin is not in my school or in my backyard is not true," she said.
The billboards tell viewers to go to FindTreatment.samhsa.gov for more information. Mumby said the resources are also available at harfordcountymd.gov/services/drugcontrol.
The county plans to move the billboard advertising to two other locations in August, Mumby said.
"Obviously, we are trying to reach as many people as possible and we are trying to reach across the county geographically, because that is what this drug does," she said.
Glassman's administration is also working with the Sheriff's Office and other stakeholders on the issue. One prominent tactic has been drug take-back days, as some people who used prescription painkillers have switched to heroin, Mumby said.
"Believe it or not, it's a cheaper alternative," she said about the illegal drug.
"There is no one solution, we know that," she said of the billboards. "We have just got to break down the silos [of stakeholders]."
The Harford County Sheriff's Office has been called to 12 fatal and 56 non-fatal overdoses suspected from heroin so far this year, Sheriff's Office spokesperson Cristie Kahler said Monday.
At the beginning of the year, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler began sending narcotics detectives out on overdose calls immediately in an attempt to identify supply sources.
Last year, Harford was ranked sixth among 24 Maryland counties in accidental drug and alcohol overdose deaths, with 43 such cases. At least 23 of them were heroin-related and 20 were related to other opiates, including prescription drugs such as methadone and oxycodone, according to a statewide report.
With Harford continuing to have one of the highest rates of overdoses in the state, Glassman used his first State of the County address in February to pledge a fight against heroin that would address treatment opportunities, as well as education to curb the spread of heroin abuse in the county.
The Sheriff's Office, the Bel Air and Aberdeen police departments and Maryland State Police in the county have been training officers to use the anti-opiate Narcan, which can be used to reverse effects of a potentially fatal overdose from heroin.