The Health Alliance Network, a District Partnership-based organization, held a news conference outside of the John A. Wilson Building to update individuals on the state of the opioid crisis in D.C., before sitting with District Council members to call for a Public Health Emergency.
“The opioid epidemic is almost as bad as the COVID epidemic. From March 2020 when COVID began, to December 31, 2022, there have been 1,411 COVID deaths, and 1, 219 opioid deaths during the same period. It is an epidemic. We are calling on the mayor to issue a public health emergency on opioids,” exclaimed Ambrose Lane Jr., chair of the Health Alliance Network.
The Health Alliance Network is an organization of stakeholders, community-based organizations and community leaders addressing health disparities within the city’s poor and low-income communities,
While residents are left to grapple with the menacing crime issues plaguing the city, Lane asserts that the opioid crisis is indeed a leading issue rocking the city by day, as found to date, D.C. averages roughly 28.6 deaths a month in drug overdoses, as opioid deaths outnumber homicide rates by more than 2 to 1. The opioid epidemic has become a seemingly overlooked crisis although its surviving victims and community members are in dire need of saving.
Coming up, The Washington Informer will further examine the various fragments of the opioid crisis across the District, highlighting the dangerous onset of xylazine, an animal tranquilizer now seen penetrating the fentanyl supply and overdoses across the East Coast.
