A Facebook post by Angie Honaker serves as a chilling reminder of the human cost of drug prohibition.
Angie Honaker was trying to collect names for the back of a T-shirt being made to honor the dead at the 10th Annual Overdose Awareness Rally in Newark, Ohio. And so, she created a post on Facebook, asking friends to leave photos and names in the comments if they wished.
Dozens of people responded.
There was a photo of a young man in a backwards ball cap, taking a selfie in a mirror. A ruddy-faced man with a brilliant smile, a seagull alighting on his arm. A white woman, hair a little mussed, grinning directly into the camera. People sitting in cars and boats. People on couches. People outside and in clubs. People with children and loved ones. A man holding up a fish.
And then their names, a cascade of loss and sorrow: Joel, Josh, Christy, Amber, Nate, Tristan, Jordan, Javon, and on and on and on.
When I came across the post as I doom-scrolled one evening in late May, I spoke out loud, “This is incredible.” It was genuine doom. It was just a simple social media post, but really it was a marker of where we are in this world at this moment in time.
I too have my own list. It’s on a note taped to the wall in my office – the names of people I have known who lost their lives to this terrible monster. I put it up one day when I was staring at another note on my wall that lists the number of people who have died each year since I started writing about overdose in Ohio. The numbers didn’t seem real.
Angie’s post and my list both serve as roll calls naming the victims of one of our time’s greatest catastrophes. A people’s history of the overdose crisis. Women and men, young and old, Black and white. People who lived beautiful and complicated lives. And we’re not alone. About one-third of Americans know someone who died of an overdose.
On Aug. 31, International Overdose Awareness Day, many will gather to remember all of those lives lost. In Ohio, the overdose awareness rally has become, I think, an important ritual. One performed every year around the same time. I’ve been to dozens around the state, but usually end up at the one in Newark. There are tables set up by local service providers, music and poetry, testimonials, and a balloon release. I reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a while. It feels purposeful, but also grounding, sacred.
But Angie said she’s reminded of those she has lost all the time, even in the most innocuous of circumstances. One time walking into Rural King she got a text that a friend had just passed away. Just like that. Out of the blue.
For Angie and her network, the many comments left on her post weren’t surprising. Overdose death has become almost normalized. It’s a part of her culture. And if you’re not in that culture, she said, you might be surprised.
“As I sit here and think back,” she said, and paused. “Today is the 8-year anniversary of my friend Richard’s death by overdose. That’s crazy. It’s so sad and so crazy… I was in early recovery and I remember it shaking me. Because prior to that, it wasn’t like you could die. That wasn’t even a thought when I was using…. Never did I really think, ‘You can die from this.’”
But then Richard died. And death became a possibility.
We were sitting outside on a park bench across from the courthouse in Newark. When she got up to leave, she told me that she was on her way to Zanesville to speak at a meeting about her experience, her recovery. For Angie, it never ends.
But this year there is promising news. Research from Harm Reduction Ohio indicates that there’s likely to be a significant drop in the number of overdose deaths in Ohio for 2024.
This is no time for celebration. In fact, it’s time to be even more alert, more focused on the work at hand. The harms of the drug war persist. There has been a noticeable shift to blaming others – China, cartels, the drug itself. This is no doubt fueled by an election cycle, but I’m here to remind readers that the emergence of fentanyl is a direct result of prohibition.
Our policies etched those names in the ledger.
Overdose awareness rallies will take place around Ohio this month from Columbus to Cleveland, including in Newark on Thursday, Aug. 29, between 5 and 7 p.m. at the Canal Market.
