Grief into action: Asheville advocates believe education best tool to fight opioid crisis
By Samiar Nefzi
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ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — Communities internationally held vigil events in honor of National Overdose Awareness Day on Wednesday, Aug. 31.
In Asheville, SeekHealing held a two-hour event in Carrier Park.
“The reality of what is happening is a crisis,” SeekHealing executive director Jennifer Nicolaisen said. “We’re losing lives every day.”
It’s estimated nearly 3,700 North Carolinians died because of substance abuse-related causes in 2021.
“We’re here to meet this new day,” Eleanor Health Foundation executive director Amy Upham said. “In this new day, it is worse.”
During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid epidemic spiked with the onset of self-isolation.
“The opioid overdose epidemic, in particular, worsened dramatically over the past four years,” Nicolaisen said. “In the past two years, we’ve seen those death rates rise close to 40%.”
The CDC estimates between April 2020 and April 2021, about 100,306 people died from drug overdoses. And 75% of those overdoses are believed to have involved opioids.
“We know somebody is not going to recover if they are dead,” Upham said.
For the last five years, vigils have been held locally to spread awareness of the ongoing crisis. Upham said her experience losing someone to an overdose was like nothing she ever experienced before.
“It’s very devastating,” Upham said. “You know that it’s not them. It was the drug that took them. It’s a feeling of powerlessness.”
Organizers said they believe broader education of harm reduction programs would be a step in the right direction to curve the ongoing epidemic.
“It rare to have that collaborative approach to addressing an issue that’s as systemic as substance use and over deaths,” Nicolaisen said.
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