- This event has passed.
About 2,000 people in Maryland died of drug overdoses last year and the governor has declared a “State of Emergency.” Join OSI-Baltimore for two important discussions about how to reduce the public health impact of this crisis, particularly on communities of color.
On Thursday, May 18th, OSI-Baltimore and the New Day Campaign will host a conversation about Safe Injection Facilities as a Public Health Strategy, with a range of guests, including Sarah Evans, a senior program manager with the Open Society Foundations’ Public Health Program and former coordinator of Vancouver’s Insite, North America’s first and only legal supervised drug injection facility.
In collaboration with the New Day Campaign, the talk will focus on how facilities where people who use drugs can inject opioids in a medical setting reduces overdoses and increases access to treatment. How does this fit into a broader harm reduction strategy? What kind of public education and stigma reduction could make this solution more possible, less controversial?
Attendees will hear from Sarah Evans, a senior program manager with the Open Society Foundation’s Public Health Program and former coordinator of Vancouver’s Insite, North America’s first and only legal supervised drug injection facility, Dr. Greg Hobelmann, a physician at Baltimore’s Ashley Addiction Treatment, singer Simone Speed, author Clarence Brown, and clients of Powell Recovery Center, whose testimonials underscore the dangers of unsupervised drug use. At the opening of the event, the Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition will lead a 10-minute opioid overdose response training, after which you can walk away with a naloxone kit that makes it possible to save someone’s life from an opioid overdose.
Free and open to the public. REGISTER HERE