Buildings and landmarks around the Island are set to light up purple tomorrow night in honour of International Overdose Awareness Day (Saturday 31 August).
Spearheaded by Manx Addiction Charity Motiv8, This year's theme is 'Together We Can' - highlighting that the impacts of an overdose are 'far reaching and indiscriminate'.
In this edition of Newscast Lewis Foster speaks with Motiv8 CEO Thea Ozenturk, Trainee Support Worker Jason McKee and Fundraiser Nicola Browne.
Overdoses, more often than not, are accidental and that is purely because the nature of drug use is mostly illicit. So it's happening illegally so people generally don't know what they are consuming. Quite often what they think they're consuming they're not so substances can be mixed, adulterated with other substances and sometimes as well when somebody's brave and they decide to stop for a period of time you know they're attempting recovery that increases their vulnerability as well. So if they relapse that increases their vulnerability to overdose as well because your tolerance has dropped right off. So it's really important to get the message out about overdose, too many overdoses. What happening in the UK, the latest figures I have from 2022, they were just short of 5,000 people and more than half of those were opiate related. Opiates are very dangerous when it comes to risk of life because they are depressant drugs, they slow down your breathing, slow down your bodily functions and basically your body shuts down. So that's why opiates are more linked to overdose. So we want this day, it's a stall for motivate but we want to celebrate this day that we are here together. The message for this campaign is together we can and it's all about how everybody can come together and spread this important message about how drug overdose can happen, how people can put themselves at risk, what family members can do, what the community can do. You know from my experience Naloxone wasn't around when I first started my substance use and then you know the Isle of Man's lost, lots of people, people have lost friends, families have been destroyed, communities, too. I think now that we have Naloxone, available it's free, people can come to the stand-on on Saturday, have some training, have a chat, you know we can help break down that stigma that prevents people coming forward and getting these kits and potentially saving people's lives. Can you explain to us how these kits work? Yes we're offering a nasal spray and you know it can be administered by anyone, it's basically you know get someone who has overdosed in a safe safe position, administer it and then back that up with a phone on the ambulance services because Naloxone only works for you know 20 minutes so it's just as vital that we get the emergency services on board as well because that's actually part of the Naloxone program. And Nicola just tell us about what's happening on on Saturday itself then, some buildings lighting up purple and you've got some ribbons and of course the stand on Saturday. Yeah so on Saturday we've got some buildings that are lighting up and going purple for us in support of the day so places like the Tower of Refuge you'll notice the prom lights, the city centre lights, city hall, Ramsey swing bridge as well or going purple along with businesses such as the Corpus Clark outside of 1886, gamesglobalplan.com so it's all in support of that day and for some people though they might not know about the day but they might look at those buildings and think oh why are they lit up purple and maybe Google that and find out a little more. So on the day itself we've got a stand down in the city centre we're going to be on the side street opposite TK Max, we'll have our team down there and the Naloxone kits as Jason has said and just the day just to raise awareness and help fundraise with the charity too because we are a charity and funds a vital to us. Along with that we are going to have purple ribbons, these can be worn on the lapel by anyone and they are for International Overdose Awareness Day and also September opens up an entire month for recovery awareness so we're asking people to come along, pop a donation in, take away a ribbon, wear that to help support our charity in the work that we do and they wear this raising. Motivate offers free confidential non-judgmental support to anybody that's impacted by alcohol, drugs, gambling or gaming and that's including family members as well and other people who are involved with somebody are significant other. You can change your life all you have to do is make that call come and see us you know confidentially and we will do our real best to help you and you can contact us on 08008 1624 627 that's a free phone number or you can email us at contact@motivate.im. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manks Radio Newscast you are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manks Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. you (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
