Fallen Opioid Takers are Remembered in Unique Memorial

Opioid addiction is no secret. Documentarian Louis Theroux even focused on it in his latest series.

Yet the extent of people in the US who still don’t know that they’re being prescribed opioids is extortionately high.

To relate this issue and make it more humane, Energy BBDO has unveiled Stop Everyday Killers, a campaign which exposes the Opioid Crises for The National Safety Council. To address the fact that 22,000 people lost their lives in 2016 to prescription Opioid overdose, the agency has literally faced the issue head on and exhibited their faces, carved into pills, in a unique memorial display.

Unveiled in Chicago last month, a wall filled with 22,000 pills was installed (below), with new faces carved into pills every 24 minutes – to represent the rate that people are dying and highlight the severity of this epidemic.

The stories of recovered opiate addicts will also be screened at the Prescribed to Death memorial to share their personal journeys to recovery and offer a glimpse at the reality of getting clean. It’s hoped that the campaign will educate others about the effect of the drug and could help to avoid more lives being lost.

Energy BBDO is also encouraging people to order labels bearing the words ‘Opioids: Warn Me’ (available here) to spread information about the risks and consequences of opioids, in the hope that they will be stuck on insurance and pharmacy cards. Medical waste disposal company Stericycle will also be supplying pre-paid Seal&Send envelopes, so patients can properly return unused meds. These methods are hoped to make it easier to change perceptions about opioid use.

Prescribed to Death will travel to other US cities so that others can also learn about the dangerous effects of opioids and hopefully control the amount of people getting hooked on the durg in the first place. Spread the word with #StopEverydayKillers.