2024 International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD)
The theme for 2024 was ‘together we can’. We decided to interpret that theme literally, hosting an event that emphasised the importance of community-led action.
Every year on the 31st of August, it is International Overdose Awareness Day — a campaign to ‘end overdose, remember without stigma those who have died and acknowledge the grief of family and friends left behind’.
The theme for 2024 was ‘together we can’. We decided to interpret that theme literally, hosting an event that emphasised the importance of community-led action. We reunited around a demo drug consumption room, naloxone training, a candlelight vigil, and empowering talks and art pieces from people within our extended communities.
Photos: Nigel Brunsdon. Exhibitions: ‘Heroin bodies’ / ‘Arts & Abolitionist Futures’
The most recent data from the Office of National Statistics shows that at least 336 people in our city are dying each year in relation to ‘drug misuse’ — a misnomer for deaths related to ‘prohibited’ substances. Drug-related death rates in London are at the highest in at least a decade.
These lives were those of our friends, loved ones, neighbours, community members. These lives were all precious, and their deaths preventable.
While opiate-related deaths continue to account for the largest proportion of the total, we are increasingly seeing the involvement of other substances — including cocaine. Drug-related deaths among the houseless population are also disproportionate, fueled by stigma, marginalisation and the resulting unsafety.
Safer drug use spaces that cater to all people who use drugs, particularly those pushed into high vulnerability, must be part of the response to drug related deaths and overdose.
People who use drugs and their communities must be resourced to enable empowering practices of collective safety — without fear and persecution.
We do not have time for the uncaringly glacial pace of parliamentary reform. Our city must do better now.
The establishment of safer consumption sites has been recommended by the London Assembly Health Committee — yet no steps seem to have been taken to enact this, or to support leadership by affected communities.
Existing regulatory measures can and must be used to make space for the operation of these harm reduction tools as soon as possible.
Safer drug use spaces are dignifying. In the hands of our communities, they will be life-changing for many. And a crucial instrument to empower people who use drugs to support each other, build connection and community, and reduce drug-related deaths in London.
Together, we can!
