The Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners on Aug. 28 read and accepted a proclamation recognizing Aug. 31, 2025, as Overdose Awareness Day and acknowledged county efforts to reduce overdose deaths.
The proclamation cited that since 2012 the addiction crisis had claimed 5,220 lives in Hamilton County, including 277 deaths in 2024, and said countywide efforts produced a 51% reduction in overdose deaths from 2017 to 2024. The document also described the Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition (HCARC) and the county’s Office of Addiction Response.
Megan Guthrie, director of the Office of Addiction Response, and Danielle Jones, director of the African American Engagement Workgroup (AAEW), joined other local partners at the dais. Larry Spellman, who identified himself in remarks as a peer recovery coach, invited commissioners and the public to an outreach event at Washington Park scheduled for Friday the 29th from 3 to 8 p.m. “When someone wants to get treatment…Let's get some treatment. We got some partners. We got a bunch of partners for treatment. Hop in the car. Let's go,” Spellman said.
Lisa Morris, chief executive of the Addiction Services Council, described shifts in outreach and treatment access and said half of the peer recovery support class this year were African American individuals, a change from four years earlier. The proclamation credited HCARC, formed in February 2015, as a multidisciplinary partnership working on prevention, treatment, interdiction and harm reduction.
Commissioners praised community partners and noted county funding to support expanded staffing and programming. The proclamation was read and accepted; multiple speakers were invited to address the board and pose for photographs. The board did not take additional formal policy votes during the presentation recorded in the transcript.