By Caity Coyne, The Herald Dispatch
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Over the past year, West Virginia harm reduction activists and organizers have faced hurdle after hurdle as more people suffer fatal overdoses or get sick from injecting drugs, and while the state and localities pass legislation against services that could help them.
Save A Life Day 2021, where 17 counties are participating to distribute hundreds of naloxone doses to people, has reminded some of these organizers what can be accomplished when people come together under difficult circumstances.
“It’s incredible to see the way people come together for this, in a good way, but then not come out in other times or for other related actions,” said Stacy Kay, co-founder of Solutions Oriented Addiction Response (SOAR), the Charleston-based grassroots harm reduction group that organized the event. “I mean, imagine if we could do that? It would be incredible. We would save more lives. We would accomplish so much more for the better.”
There will be 11 sites in Kanawha County distributing free Narcan and training people on how to inject it. Other counties participating Wednesday include Cabell, Berkeley, Monongalia, Harrison, Wayne, Logan, Marion, Jefferson, Putnam and Morgan. Ohio and Wetzel counties held their distributions last week, and Boone, Mercer, McDowell and Wyoming counties will have theirs at a later date…