Roz Pichardo, who runs The Sunshine House, a community outreach and education organization in Kensington, has been working with volunteers and people who frequent her center to make elaborate sets of wings, cut from long strands of packing foam.
Sunshine House participants also have printed out images of people in Philadelphia who have died from fatal drug overdoses. One of the photographs is ofAmanda Cahill, a Philadelphia mother with opioid use disorder who died in a city jail last year after being picked up during a police sweep in Kensington.
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The wings and placards were made for Pichardo and others to hold during an overdose awareness march Thursday evening that runs from Kensington Avenue and East Huntingdon Street toPrevention Point Philadelphia, a syringe exchange and medical and social services hub on Kensington Avenue.Kensington has one of the largest open-air drug markets in the country, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.
In addition to remembering people who have died from drug overdoses and raising awareness about the ongoing drug crisis, this year's march – and Overdose Awareness Day on Sunday – is a form of protest, Pichardo said.
"It's a somber walk, but we've been trying to prepare sayings and chants to oppose how they're treating folks in harm reduction," Pichardo said, referencing the city's defunding of syringe exchange efforts, restrictions on mobile outreach services and an increased law-and-order approach to the drug crisis. "We're remembering our loved ones, but there also has … to be a little bit of pushback from us. ... We're going to continue to lose (people) if this kind of negative stance against harm reduction continues."
Drug overdose fatalities have dropped nationwide, from 110,037 in 2023 to an estimated 80,391 in 2024, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose deaths also were down in Philadelphia to 1,310 in 2023 — a 7% decrease from a record high of 1,413 in 2022. But 2023 was still the second-highest year for drug overdose deaths in the city, nearly three times higher than in 2013, when there were 460 fatal overdoses.
The reasons for the declines are somewhat unclear, but local and national policy makers have credited increased distribution of the opioid reversal medication naloxone, branded Narcan, as well as increased availability of medications for opioid use disorder and treatment. At the same time, harm reduction strategies that focus on making drug use safer – as opposed to thinking it can be eliminated or trying to force people into treatment – have come under attack.
In an executive order last month, President Donald Trump advocated for withholding federal funding from programs "including so-called 'harm reduction' or 'safe consumption' efforts that only facilitate illegal drug use and its attendant harm." Cities nationwide, including Philadelphia, also have been pulling back on harm reduction services.
Harm reduction critics claim the services enable drug use and increase crime. Advocates of the approach worry that cutbacks will cause a spike in HIV and hepatitis C and lead to more overdose deaths.
"Harm reductionists that do this work every day, and people that work in this field, have been under immense emotional stress and professional stress," said Sarah Laurel, executive director of Savage Sisters, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that provides recovery housing, harm reduction education and training, and mobile outreach services in the city and neighboring counties.
"While this (Overdose Awareness Day) may be an incredibly meaningful day ... we are painfully aware of the toxic drugs and the overdose crisis that this country is experiencing," Laurel added. "I am not very interested in standing on the capitol steps and banging my head against a wall while our lawmakers seem to be at a stalemate for making any progressive, positive changes for our people."
The day after Overdose Awareness marches and events, "the purple flags are taken down. The capital is no longer lit up purple," Laurel said. "The walk is over, and it's back to business – to defund and shut down actual organizations that are on the ground doing the work day to day."