Walk, candlelight vigil and Narcan giveaway seek to fight overdoses

Peggy Toledo didn’t have Narcan the day she found her husband overdosed from heroin last year.

“I wish I had it then,” Toledo said Thursday evening after getting a free Narcan kit at an International Overdose Awareness Day walk and vigil held along 14th Street in Manatee County.

It’s been nine months since she found her husband, Edwin Jusino, overdosed in their bathroom. She called 911 as she had three times before, but that time paramedics were not able to revive him. Narcan can reverse the effects of an overdose.

“I was trying to help him. It had been three months since the last episode,” Toledo said. “”The last one was the last one.”

Dozens took to the streets in Manatee County Thursday evening in observance of International Overdose Awareness Day honoring those they’d lost and hoping to raise awareness of the heroin epidemic. Organized by nonprofits No Longer Silent and the Suncoast Harm Reduction Project, those gathered prayed before walking along 14th Street West.

The groups chose 14th Street West in hopes of reaching more people in the community who may be fighting addiction, said Gerrie Stanhope of No Longer Silent. Narcan nasal spray kits, paid for by a grant received by the state Department of Children and Families, were distributed.

Julia Negron, co-founder of Suncoast Harm Reduction Project, provided quick training on the administatration of Narcanfor anyone who needed.

“We’re giving out as much as we can because we’re true believers that all these people don’t have to die,” Negron said.

Negron knows all to well the affects of Narcan after having her own life saved by it in the 1970s, she said. But it would be years after that before she found herself in recovery. She’s lost family members to overdoses, she said, including most recently her daughter-in-law.

“Now, I’m raising my 8-year-old grandson,” Negron said.

Toledo was among the many people who walked away on Thursday with a Narcan kit and knowledge how to use it.

She said she didn’t know if it would have saved her husband, who claimed his heroin addiction was only recreational and actually died from a fatal carfentanil overdose.

Overdoses began to spiral out of control when dealers starting cutting fentanyl — a power painkiller that is 100 times more potent than morphine — into heroin or selling it as heroin. Later, dealers began using a synthetic form of fentanyl — cartenfentanil — in heroin supplies. Cartenfentanil is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine that is generally used as a tranquilizer for exotic animals such rhinos, elephants and hippos.

Since his death, she began to research the problem even more and found No Longer Silent.

“Geri actually found me,” Toledo said.

Many were grateful to see Capt. Todd Shear, who commands the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Division, in attendance.

“I’m very optimistic we’re trending in the right direction,” Shear said. “I’m encouraged that the community is coming together.”

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 10:20 PM with the headline "Walk, candlelight vigil and Narcan giveaway seek to fight overdoses."