By Logan Langlois
PHILADELPHIA, PA — The decades-long opioid crisis has proven to be one that citizens are still processing even after having experienced several devastating waves that have claimed nearly 645,000 lives from overdoses between 1999-2021 according to the CDC. The show “Street Talk” was simultaneously broadcast over both Power 99 and WDAS FM, and hosted by Power 99 air personality Cosmic Kev and iHeartMedia Philadelphia Director of News and Community Affairs Loraine Ballard. During their discussion over the show, Kev and Ballard tackled several hard-hitting topics that relate to combating spiraling overdose deaths in Black communities.
The program welcomed additional Power 99 personality Mickey Dredd who has recently endorsed Narcan as a lifesaving harm reduction tool. During his time on the broadcast, Dredd shared a personal connection to the subject matter having been raised by a step-parent who struggled with addiction. Dredd said that the biggest thing he has found to help those whom he is trying to support through addiction is to simply keep showing up in their life.
WDAS FM personality Adimu Colón contributed his experience of having someone close to him struggle with addiction, mostly to say the experience has challenged him to grow as a person as well. Colon said he often found himself having to check his judgment while trying to show support, as he would often find himself passing judgment while sadly watching his loved one deteriorate over the years.
“When you talk about someone who’s judgmental, I’ve been the poster child,” Colon said. “I’ve been extremely judgmental and really had to learn that you have to be compassionate, and you have to be loving and that you just shouldn’t judge them.”
Ballard said something difficult for many to navigate through is the many negative stereotypes that are attached to those suffering from drug addiction. One of the episode’s guests Deputy Director of the Opioid Response Unit for the City of Philadelphia Keli McLoyd, said much of the time those who are dying of a fatal drug overdose are dying alone and with their loved ones unaware that they’re even using substances.
“Just that fact on its own really pushes back against this idea of we know what … people who use drugs look like,” McLoyd said. “In our minds we want this to be something that, ‘those’ people are in the gutter, and by the way they’re ‘those’ people, right? They’re not people who look like me, they’re not people who sound like me.”
McLoyd said that in the past harm reduction efforts have encouraged people to carry life-saving tools such as Narcan if they are using or know someone who uses drugs. She said the data is now saying is that much of the time people just don’t know whether someone they’re close to is using drugs. McLoyd said that because of this, she now believes the right policy is to treat things like Narcan as an everyday in-house item that is present in case of emergency.
Ballard said measures in place for overdoses may be more important to take now than ever, as the risk of an overdose has become greater over the years. Ballard said Black men ranked as the highest demographic affected by opioid overdoses in Philadelphia according to a recent study. Ballard said studies suggest African Americans aren’t using drugs more often than any other population, suggesting that it is instead the quality of drugs being acquired that has declined and is being cut with dangerous substances such as fentanyl. Ballard said this makes distribution and education around harm reduction tools all the more crucial.
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