MOUNT WASHINGTON, Ky. — President Joe Biden is proclaiming this week as Overdose Awareness Week. According to the 2023 Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report, fentanyl accounted for nearly 80% of overdose deaths.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden is proclaiming Aug. 25 through Aug. 31, 2024, as Overdose Awareness Week 

  • Nonprofit Morgan's Mission hosted a walk and rally Aug. 25 to raise awareness about poisoning and overdoses

  • The event honored about 275 people who died from fentanyl poisoning or an overdose

  • More than 265,000 fentanyl pills were seized in Kentucky in 2023, according to the Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report 

A nonprofit raised awareness for fentanyl poisoning and overdoses with a rally and memorial walk in Bullitt County. A dove release started the walk to remember lives lost to fentanyl and overdoses.

“Morgan, she was a 23-year-old, beautiful, red-headed girl," said Laura Thurman, of the nonprofit Morgan’s Misson. "She was my best friend, and she made a choice one night to do something really stupid. It cost her life." 

Thurman lost her daughter, Morgan, to fentanyl poisoning, even though she didn’t have a substance abuse disorder. She died Feb. 3, 2022.

“She was going through quite of a depression," Thurman said. "We tried to get her help. She thought she would be OK, but I really do feel like this is why she was …  making the choices she was making because she was going through a depression." 

Morgan's Mission hosted the event to bring the community together and raise awareness about poisoning and overdoses. 

“I think our community is realizing that this is an epidemic, and we do need to come together to fight this epidemic," Thurman said. "That's the only way we're going to fight it." 

The report said last year alone, there were just under 2,000 overdose deaths in Kentucky. The Aug. 25 walk honored about 275 people. 

“These people are not even trying to get high," Thurman said. "I have met so many angel families over Facebook and over the internet, that their children just had maybe an ache or pain, had anxiety and someone gave them a pill and it was fentanyl."

"It was pressed fentanyl, and now they're not here." 

The walk and rally will return to the WesBanco Amphitheater in Mount Washington for years to come.

“We will continue to do this as long as I live," Thurman said. "Yes, I want to honor all these all these beautiful angels." 

In 2023, the Kentucky Counterdrug Program seized more than 265,000 fentanyl pills and more than 208 pounds of fentanyl, according to the Drug Overdose Fatality Report.

Related Stories