On International Overdose Awareness Day, around 75 community members and stakeholders packed into Red Emma’s coffee shop in Baltimore to honor loved ones who lost their lives to overdose — and advocate for steps forward.
Mayor Brandon Scott said that nearly two thousand people have died by overdose in Baltimore City in the past two years.
“That, as you know, trumps gun violence. But very rarely do you hear anyone talking about the neighbors that we lose to overdose,” Scott said. “We all know why that is. We have to continue to call out those who continue to think of folks with addiction issues as less than them, because they are our neighbors.”
Scott urged attendees at Thursday’s eighth annual overdose awareness event run by the city health department to join him in pushing for overdose prevention sites. These sites are staffed with trained medical professionals to ensure safe drug use, and provide local support services.
“We’re going to need everyone in the fight as we bring overdose prevention sites here to Baltimore,” Scott said. “Saving lives today gives people the opportunity and the option to make better choices tomorrow.”
Scott has been advocating for overdose prevention sites since 2021, but legislation has yet to pass.
Attendee numbers dwindled as programming shifted to a panel discussion about youth opioid use, and the glamorization found in hip-hop music.
“Everybody else dipped once the cameras left,” said David Fakunle, a public health professor at Morgan State University.
Fakunle joined local comedian Fred Watkins and 19-year-old urban journalist Isaiah Young as panelists.
“Hip-hop is one of the most popular storytelling media we have. It has been for 50 years,” Fakunle said. But the content has changed over the years, Young added, focusing on “percocets and killing and drugs.”
