International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) – held on August 31 every year – is the world’s
largest annual campaign to end overdose, remember without stigma those who have died and
acknowledge the grief of family and friends left behind.
Here at Cornerstone, together with the International Overdose Awareness Day Campaign,
we will honor those impacted by overdose with an honorary walk. CDP clients will create
signs and posters and gather with all staff and clients, while wearing purple, for a walk
around the block on August 29th at 10:30 am. The walk will take place at our Black Road
location – 800 Black Road, Joliet, IL 60435
Our theme for 2024 is “Together we can”, highlighting the power of our community when we all
stand together. There is an international crisis of drug overdose. Over the last twenty years drug
overdose deaths have increased significantly in many parts of the world. Each year a record
number of deaths are reported, predominantly driven by the misuse of opioids, often in
combination with other drugs including benzodiazepines, stimulants and alcohol.
In 2021, an estimated 296 million people – one in every 17 people aged 15-64 – had used a
drug in the past 12 months, a 23 percent increase from 2011.
Opioids account for two-thirds (69 percent) of drug overdose deaths. The estimated number of
people using opioids globally has doubled from 26-36 million people in 2010 to 61.3 million in
2020. There are currently multiple ongoing opioid overdose epidemics in the world; one is driven
by the increased presence of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in the United States and Canada,
while another in North Africa, West Africa, the Near and Middle East and South-West Asia is
due to the non-medical use of the synthetic opioid tramadol.
Some of the new drugs available today – most notably synthetic opioids and amphetamine-type
stimulants – are more dangerous than their counterparts were 20 or even 10 years ago. There
were 1,235 new psychoactive substances reported in 142 countries and territories between
2013 and 2023. Opioids are the fastest-growing and most harmful group of new psychoactive
substances – there were 88 different types recorded globally in 2021, an increase from just one
in 2009.
In 2023, provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yielded an
estimate of 105,303 drug overdose deaths in the United States, a decrease of 2 percent from
2022. Two-thirds of these deaths involved synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. The United
States reported an age-adjusted mortality rate of 32.4 per 100,000 population, for the 15–64-
year age bracket for 2021.
ABOUT CORNERSTONE SERVICES
Since 1969, Cornerstone Services has been an advocate for people with disabilities in Joliet
and greater Will, Kankakee and southern Cook County areas. The agency is a recognized
leader in providing the support necessary for individuals with disabilities to live and work in the
community. Recently, Cornerstone has expanded services to South Holland, as well.
Cornerstone is guided by the belief that people with disabilities are entitled to live in their own
communities and make choices for themselves, like everybody else. To this end, Cornerstone
employees provide specialized services that empower individuals with as much independence
as possible.
