Yesterday, August 31st, OSI-Baltimore joined the Baltimore City Health Department and other local organizations and residents in marking International Overdose Awareness Day. Over the course of the day, more than 670 Baltimore residents learned how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose
In the morning, OSI staff joined the Health Department and Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore at Fibus Drug Store in West Baltimore to talk to the media about Overdose Awareness Day and to train community members how to administer the life-saving overdose-reversal drug Naloxone. In the picture above, Mark O’Brien, the Health Department’s director of opioid overdose prevention and treatment, talks to the media with OSI’s Overdose Awareness Day posters in the background (see full sizes here and here).
The posters, designed by local illustrator Alex Fine, were posted in locations around town, including digital billboards on I-83,City Hall, the Baltimore City Health Department, Baltimore Police headquarters, Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore, and at various office buildings downtown, with digital versions on our website, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram.
In the afternoon, OSI Drug Addiction Treatment program director Scott Nolen, in collaboration with OSI’s Education and Youth Development program and Baltimore City School Police Chief Akil Hamm, led a training module on addiction, including a training on administering Naloxone, with the school police officers.
In the afternoon, the Health Department and the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition, as OSI grantee, held an Overdose Awareness Day Remembrance Event at Red Emma’s. Throughout the year, OSI’s End Overdose page and the Health Department’s Don’t Die website are good resources for information on overdose.
