Ohio’s Unequal Epidemic: Where overdose death rates are highest and lowest?
Some Ohio cities have surprisingly low overdose death rates. Some rural areas have suffered a shockingly high death toll. Two maps tell the story.
read more Harm Reduction Ohio List of Overdose Awareness Day Events in Ohio in 2018
A complete list of Ohio events for International Overdose Awareness Day. Fourteen Ohio communities are having events.
read more Tino Fuentes, fentanyl test strip guru, coming to Ohio
The great and colorful New York harm reduction advocate will spend a week in Ohio from August 22-29. You should meet him. Read our interview with the “pied piper of fentanyl test strips.”
read more 2017 OVERDOSE DEATH REPORT: Montgomery County leads Ohio … again
For the first time, every county suffered at least one overdose death. (Cuyahoga suffered 598.) Statewide, deaths were up 20%. A county-by-county look.
read more Not Right: The problem with how reporters cover fentanyl
Reporters unwisely adopt the language and assumptions of law enforcement. This distorts coverage and misleads readers about basic facts and what’s important. To paraphrase a line from the newspaper movie “Absence of Malice,” daily journalism’s coverage of drugs is often accurate — but not true.
read more Ohio should stop using low-dose naloxone
Carfentanil is too common and too powerful for Ohio to continue to use low-dose naloxone. The state must start using only FDA-approved naloxone devices (which carry much higher doses) to treat opioid overdoses.
read more Ohio’s carfentanil death rate 21 times higher — yes, 2000%! — than in other states
Carfentanil has devastated Ohio — but not other states. Why did the powerful opioid kill 1,100 in just 12 months here…but not elsewhere? Ohio’s carfentanil death toll is shocking and heartbreaking.
read more Attend Ohio’s first gathering of harm reduction advocates
Register for Ohio’s first gathering of harm reduction advocates. The one-day event will be held Sept. 15 in Granville, a picturesque town east of Columbus. Cost $25.
read more Stop saying we have an opiate crisis!
Ohio has a drug overdose epidemic. Big difference. The cause of the epidemic is contamination, not opioid use. Cocaine and meth users are increasingly bearing the brunt of overdose death in Ohio.
read moreBe careful.
Be very, very careful.
How much fentanyl will kill you?
A lot less than you think.
Art by Hannah Weatherington
What Is Harm Reduction?
Drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights.
Pragmatic and practical strategies that meet drug users “where they’re at.” Harm reduction supports safer use — such as syringe exchange and medical marijuana — and no use at all.
Need drug treatment?
A non-profit foundation provides a neutral guide to Ohio recovery facilities.
What is harm reduction?
Dennis Cauchon
President, Harm Reduction Ohio
Dennis is the founder of Harm Reduction Ohio. He created the 501(c)3 non-profit organization to advocate for drug policies that reduce overdose death, imprisonment and other drug war harms.
He is a former national reporter at USA TODAY and Knight Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School. During his 35-year journalism career, he won various awards, including the Champion of Justice award and H.L. Mencken Award for Investigative Journalism for work on the drug war.
“I believe all people, including drug users, should be treated peacefully and with respect,” he says.
Dennis is the father of two boys and lives in Granville, Ohio.
Taylor Bennett
Director of Advocacy
Taylor has a master of science degree in human development and family sciences from the University of Wyoming. She’s won multiple awards for academic excellence and received her undergraduate degree at Morehead State University in her native Kentucky. (Go Eagles!:)
Taylor is married to her college sweetheart, who she’s known since pre-school. She has two adorable boys and divides her time between Columbus and Greenfield, Ohio.
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