Drug coalition giving way free Narcan for International Overdose Awareness Day

Opioid overdose deaths have fallen in the Mahoning Valley and all across Ohio in recent years, but other drugs like meth and fentanyl are on the rise.

In Mercer County, a coalition for drug awareness is working to combat that by giving out free Narcan this International Overdose Awareness Day.

"The less deaths the better, right," Tracy Weimer, treasurer for the Mercer County Coalition for Drug Awareness. "I mean, we wanna save lives, that's the bottom line here. People aren't always ready to get into treatment when we think they should, so we wanna give them that chance," she said.

Addiction can be a beast to overcome, so while drugs are being filtered into their community, the coalition wants to educate everyone on how to use Narcan.

"We do have less overdose deaths over the last two years but a lot of that is attributed to the Narcan distribution," Weimer said. "So thank goodness that we do have this and it is saving lives," she said.

Weimer said it's alarming to see how these drugs are affecting her community.

"Fentanyl is not just in fentanyl I mean, you're not just getting fentanyl, the cocaine has it in it, the marijuana has it in it, we're finding that people are overdosing that are just your marijuana smoker," Weimer said.

Weimer said it's a fight every day to save a life.

"Our struggles are getting people into treatment, getting them to stick with treatment, and the aftercare we really, really need a lot of after care," Weimer said. "It's very alarming and luckily in Mercer County we're very rich with services we have a lot of services out there, non profits to help with this," she said.

Weimer said everyone should have Narcan on hand, even if you don't know anyone who might need it because you might run into someone who does. The Narcan was distributed in Grove City, Hermitage, Sharon, Sandy Lake and Greenville.