skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Ohio's milestone moment for women in government; Price growth ticked up in November as inflation progress stalls; NE public housing legal case touches on quality of life for vulnerable renters; California expert sounds alarm on avian flu's threat to humans, livestock.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Debates on presidential accountability, the death penalty, gender equality, Medicare and Social Security cuts; and Ohio's education policies highlight critical issues shaping the nation's future.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Many rural counties that voted for Trump also cast ballots against school vouchers and to protect abortion rights, Pennsylvania's Black mayors are collaborating to unite their communities and unique methods are being tried to address America's mental health crisis.

Overdose Awareness Day: Montanans Honor Lives Lost

play audio
Play

Thursday, August 29, 2019   

MISSOULA, Mont. – Montanans on Thursday are remembering lives lost to overdose in Missoula.

The organization Open Aid Alliance is marking Overdose Awareness Day with a memorial, overdose response education and lunch to bring members of the community together.

The organization also is handing out naloxone – an antidote that can reverse overdoses while they're happening.

A 2017 bill in the Montana Legislature increased access to the reversal drug.

"Our plan for the day is to remember those that we've lost and pay some honor to that, celebrate those that are still with us and keep a real kind of fight and energy to make sure that we don't have to lose anyone else going forward," says Amanda Reese, harm reduction program coordinator for the Open Aid Alliance

International Overdose Awareness Day is Saturday.

The number of overdose deaths nationwide dropped from 72,000 to 68,000 between 2017 and 2018, representing the first drop in deaths since 1990.

Overdose deaths in Montana have been on the decline over the past few years.

Reese says stigma is a barrier to helping more people. She says some people suffer from the personal stigma of their substance-abuse disorder. Others feel too embarrassed to engage with recovery services such as hers.

Reese says with an epidemic as big as the opioid crisis, everyone knows someone who has been affected by overdose.

"Whether it's a friend or a family member, a co-worker, nobody's really immune at this point, and so we're just trying to remind folks that we need to bring everybody into our arms and say, 'Your life is worth saving,'" she stresses.

Open Aid Alliance began as AIDS service organization in the 1980s. It now has a sterile syringe service program to reduce the spread of disease, a found syringe hotline, and has just started harm reduction intervention services.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
David Bintz' brother, Robert Bintz, was also released from prison this year and was represented by the Great North Innocence Project. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

The Wisconsin Innocence Project is ending the year with some key victories including helping with the release of two men who each spent decades in pri…


Health and Wellness

play sound

By Dawn Attride for Sentient.Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for California News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collabora…

Social Issues

play sound

Missouri has stepped up to fight childhood hunger by providing food aid over the summer for kids who rely on school meals for nutrition. The U.S…


A 2022 study of evictions in Lancaster County by the University of Nebraska College of Law found a high level of non-compliance in moving forward with such proceedings when tenants lacked counsel. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

The public housing agency serving Nebraska's largest city faces legal action amid claims of poor living conditions for a tenant with disabilities…

Social Issues

play sound

Five years ago, Minnesota established a program to bolster well-being metrics for children of color and young Native American kids. Today, fund …

Out-of-pocket costs increased by $1700 on average for older Coloradans with Medicare Advantage coverage, plans claiming to limit health costs for people living on fixed incomes. (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Between 2013 and 2022, health care spending in Colorado surged by 139% to nearly $30 billion, according to a new analysis by the Center for Improving …

Health and Wellness

play sound

Indianapolis is expanding its innovative Clinician-Led Community Response program, offering Hoosiers a new approach to handling mental health crises…

Social Issues

play sound

Worker-owned cannabis cooperatives in Rhode Island are striving to help those affected by the war on drugs. State law mandates at least six retail …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021