Many of the close to 200 people that turned out on Thursday, Aug. 31, for an International Overdose Awareness Day event at a small park in Northeast D.C. known as Starburst Plaza witnessed officials with the local harm reduction services group HIPS rush to the aid of a man who lost consciousness.

One of the HIPS staffers rendered aid before D.C. Emergency Medical Services Department technicians arrived on a fire truck. The EMS technicians provided further treatment to the man, including placing an oxygen mask on his face, that resulted in his regaining consciousness.

He was taken to a hospital by an ambulance that arrived on the scene a short time later.

HIPS, whose offices and drop-in center are located a few blocks away from where the event took place, was one of its lead organizers. HIPS and about a half dozen other community-based organizations that provide services for drug users and sex workers set up tables and handed out literature on the sidewalk at the site of Starburst Plaza.

Longtime D.C. transgender rights advocate Earline Budd, who works for HIPS, said members of the LGBTQ community, including transgender women of color, have been among those who have lost their lives to opioid overdoses. Budd pointed to large photos displayed at the event of three trans women who died from an opioid overdose within the past year.

“Lives of members of our community are being lost in what is truly an epidemic, and we can no longer ignore this,” Budd said.

Also participating in the event was Devon Trotter, who serves as chair of the HIPS board of directors.

“We hope that today just brings awareness to the epidemic that we have here in this country and in our community – the opioid epidemic,” Trotter said. “We know that drug use isn’t going to stop,” he told the Washington Blade.

“So, we need to ensure that folks get access to support and resources to use their drugs safely, to be able to know what’s in them without fear for their lives,” he said. “A day like today is also important because it brings awareness to those who we have lost and those who are struggling,” said Trotter.

Among the other organizations that collaborated with HIPS and set up tables at the event to distribute literature about opioid overdose prevention were Whitman-Walker Health; the emergency services organization Forensic Nurse Examiners; the drug user support group Revise, Inc.; and the advocacy and support coalition Decrim Poverty D.C.

Also attending the event were members of the D.C. police department’s LGBT Liaison Unit.
L.J. Sislen, one of the officials with Decrim Poverty D.C., said the coalition advocates for support services for drug users and for decriminalization of drug use and possession.

“You can’t get well in a cell,” she said, referring to the frequent arrest and incarceration of people experiencing addiction on charges of illegal drug possession. “We believe that eliminating criminal penalties for drug use is one of the most effective ways for us to address the worsening drug overdose crisis,” Sislen said.

Vito Maggiolo, a spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said the man treated and placed in the ambulance at the D.C. Overdose Awareness Day event was listed as being in “potentially serious condition.”

But he said under city privacy laws, he is unable to provide further details of the man’s condition or to disclose which hospital he was taken to. Maggiolo said that all firefighters are trained as emergency medical technicians and can provide the same emergency treatment to someone suffering from an illness or other emergency medical condition as the medical technicians assigned to an ambulance.

In a related development, the White House and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra released statements commemorating International Overdose Awareness Day and announced additional federal funding for programs that address opioid addiction and overdose prevention.

“Today, on International Overdose Awareness Day, the Biden-Harris administration is recognizing all those who have lost someone to an overdose,” the White House statement says. “President Biden declared August 27 through September 2 as Overdose Awareness Week to focus the nation’s attention on the devastation caused by illicit fentanyl and other drugs,” says the statement.

“During this week of recognition, we reaffirm our commitment to beating this epidemic – in memory of those we have lost and to protect the lives we can save,” the statement says.

In the separate HHS statement, Becerra outlined recently implemented programs of the Biden administration and HHS that allocate more than $450 million to support the administration’s Unity Agenda efforts to address the overdose problem.

“Drug overdose does not discriminate – rich or poor, Black or white, urban or suburban, drug overdoses reach every corner of our society,” Becerra said. “On this Overdose Awareness Day, we reflect on the toll that substance misuse takes, both in terms of lives lost and immeasurable pain it brings to families and communities,” he said.

(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story reported that a HIPS staffer administered Narcan to the unconscious man. A HIPS spokesperson later told the Blade that Narcan was not administered.)