Addiction & Recovery 9.14.25 - Flipbook - Page 15
A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Sunday, September 14, 2025 15
and death as the users are secluded
and alone without monitoring.
The most effective and crucial
tool to have the greatest impact, according to both Kerr and Wagner, is
teaching people in these areas about
the dangers of street drugs.
“Education on the other hand
is paramount, outreach workers
sharing with people on the ground
coupled with distribution of info
through social media is a helpful
way to get to the people consuming
drugs,” Kerr notes.
The education process includes the
distribution of naloxone kits, which
have been proven to reverse opioid
overdoses. Many community workers and agency representatives, like
Wagner and Kerr, visit the streets
and distribute kits in an attempt to
save the lives of habitual users who
risk overdose from bad batches.
Wagner meets with people oneon-one where they are, but also
those who have been brought to the
emergency department or a treatment program at one of the LifeBridge Health hospitals, handing
out hygiene kits, educating them on
the importance of being receptive to
treatment referrals and, of course,
encouraging them to stop using. She
provides each with test strips and a
naloxone kit, showing them how to
use it, how to keep it close by and
how to make contact with her for a
replacement should it be used, gets
lost or expire.
She also meets with loved ones of
those who are addicted and habitual
users, which she says, does not happen enough.
“I always encourage people to –
and I did this on July 11 – let the individual, whether it’s a family member, friend or even a stranger, know
you’re aware that they’re suffering
and battling with this addiction, and
let them know you genuinely care,”
she says. “Of course, [they should]
encourage them to seek profession-
al help, whether it be to go to the
hospital and let hospital professionals guide them down a pathway to
treatment. But our biggest piece is
going to have those doors open and
those opportunities to have an organic conversation with true transparency, and I don’t feel like we’re
having enough of that.”
Wagner also suggests more needs
to be done by public officials to reinstate funds for programs designed to
provide assistance for those fighting
addiction and substance abuse.
“It is already challenging for individuals that have a particular type
of insurance to get into treatment,
because you have to have a contract
with certain insurances to be accepted into treatment,” she says. “The
cost of treatment is very expensive,
and a lot of programs are unable to
even financially sustain themselves.
The patient, if they have an addiction, they’re not good with money
and it is impossible for them to afford the treatment.”
While street drug use and exchanges continue in the area, Wagner attests that educating the public
must continue. This includes having
experts attend “career days” at middle schools and having open discussions with classes and auditoriums
full of students, a throwback to the
days of “Just Say No” and “DARE”
programs from decades ago.
“I would like to see a lot of that
come back, because, if nothing else,
I knew, every year at different grade
levels, those individuals were going to come and tell us, ‘Don’t use
drugs,’ but they were going to tell
us some reasons why,” she recalls. “I
remember being fearful of that, like
I didn’t want my skin to be messed
up, I didn’t want to get sick, and I
definitely didn’t want anybody to
have to worry about me. We don’t
see those campaigns and those commercials on TV [anymore].”
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