By Dawar Naeem
Dawar  Community Journalist with Focus Media Arts Centre

International Overdose Awareness Day, a day for people and communities to come together to raise awareness about one of the world’s most pressing public health crises. In Canada, there’s been a total of 29,052 overdose related deaths since 2016. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, overdose deaths rose by 96%, to almost one death every day in 2021.

The overdose crisis is spreading rapidly. The increasing numbers of lives lost we’ve seen over the past couple of years are proof that we are failing members of our communities who use drugs. Meanwhile, the grief of those who have lost loved ones to this crisis is barely acknowledged due to stigmatization and shame.

Seaton house along with 20 other Toronto based organizations and programs including homeless shelters, community health centres, harm reduction programmings, overdose prevention services, HIV/AIDS serving organizations, Crisis response programs and individuals committed to overdose prevention collectively hosted IOAD (International Overdose Awareness Day) on George Street. The day included food, music, harm reduction and health care resources, nutrition resources and naloxone use training, and held space to remember and honour our loved ones who have died or been injured because of an overdose.

The community in Toronto’s Downtown East, especially people experiencing homelessness, continues to be  affected by both the toxic drug supply and drug policies. International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) aims to provide better understanding of overdose, reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths, and create change that reduces the harms related with drug use. Folks around the world come together annually on this day to raise and spread awareness of one of the world’s most urgent public health crises, one that, regrettably, is only getting worse. In Toronto, the situation is becoming very critical and its time to take concrete action with respect to this issue.