I wouldn’t wish having to be the person that has to inform a family that the loved one they’ve been searching for overdosed alone in a field in Kensington & his body was just ID’d on anyone. If he had a safe, sterile place to go and use, he wouldn’t have been left there for days

Similarly, I wouldn’t wish being the mother who has to answer that phone call, or the brother who needs to go to the morgue to have a sheet pulled down to expose the news they have been dreading for months.

I sit here knowing this news, and know that his little girl has not yet been told that daddy won’t ever be coming home. As a little girl who lost her daddy as well, I know this news will shift the trajectory of her life forever. And in this moment, she’s still in bliss.

Yet another preventable death for us to process. How do you find reason to a death that never had to happen? That the solutions to help mend these mortality rates exist and are proven, To benefit not only those using, but to the surrounding communities as well?

As sad as I am for the little girl whose life is about to change forever, I am more so filled with anger after each phone call that bares this similar news. Every overdose death is a preventable death. Preventable deaths are a public policy failure. @CMMarkSquilla #SupportSCS