AN ANTI drug charity set up stall in Annan High Street this week to give townsfolk medical training to deal with overdoses.
We Are With You is a charity in Dumfries that provides free and confidential support to people experiencing issues with drugs or alcohol.
They work with people on their own goals, whether that’s staying safe and healthy, making a small change or stopping an unwanted habit.
We Are With You has partnered with the Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) to launch the #StopTheDeaths programme, where peer naloxone champions will take to the streets and educate residents on first aid.
As such, #StopTheDeaths will be travelling across Dumfries and Galloway and stopping in different towns and villages over the next 12 months to teach as many people as possible how to administer the lifesaving naloxone.
Wez Steele, training and development officer at SDF, said “It is a privilege to be working alongside people with lived and living experience of drug use to improve access to life-saving naloxone within their own communities.
“The passion, commitment, and motivation peers show every single day is second to none.”
Yvonne Wilson, peer naloxone champion co-ordinator, said: “In 2021, 1330 people in Scotland died from drug overdoses, with opiates dominating these drug-related deaths.
“To educate people on this and to aid in reducing the number of deaths, #StopTheDeaths provides quick and free training on what to do when someone you know is having an overdose, while also providing a sample of Naloxone.
“Naloxone is an extremely important drug as it can reverse the effects of an opiates overdose. There are two ways to administer it, either nasally or with a hypodermic needle. We offer both at our tent.
“We’ll be popping around the region for the next year to provide training and kits to those that are interested, in an attempt to reduce drug death.”
Two new pop-up events have already been scheduled for next week. The first takes place on Tuesday at We Are With You’s Office in Dumfries at Buccleuch Street from 1.30 pm, while the second will take place at their office in Stranraer on Charlotte Street from 11 am on Friday 28.
For more information, visit www.stopthedeaths.com.
