About the MD988 Campaign

A Robust 988 Network and Crisis Response System is Needed Because …

• All Marylanders deserve equitable, timely, and effective mental health and substance use care, including behavioral health crisis care;

• The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline launched in July 2022, establishing for the first time a national three-digit number for mental health and substance use crisis response;

• People who go to hospital emergency rooms for mental health and substance use crises may have to wait many hours to receive care;

• Over-reliance on law enforcement for responding to behavioral health crises has led to inequitable access to care, poor health outcomes, and disproportionate arrest and incarceration for people of color;

• People with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement;

• Marylanders have been forced to rely on hospital emergency rooms and law enforcement to provide mental health and substance use crisis response even though these are not the best settings for care;

The new National 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is an important step, but the new number is just the beginning of building out a high-quality and robust crisis response system.

• The COVID pandemic has made mental health and substance use worse for Marylanders, greatly increasing the number of people who are seeking help for mental health and substance use services;

• Mental health and substance use crisis services are for anyone, anywhere, and anytime;

• The current system to treat mental health and substance use crises does not have the capacity to serve all those in need 24/7, 365 days a year across Maryland;