New NSC video: “Facing an Everyday Killer”

Itasca, IL — As part of its ongoing campaign to increase awareness of the opioid crisis, the National Safety Council has released a video highlighting the personal impact of prescription drug misuse.

Part of NSC’s Stop Everyday Killers campaign, the three-minute video, Facing an Everyday Killer, features reflections from former opioid abusers as well as loved ones of people who became addicted, overdosed and died. Footage also shows individuals visiting the Prescribed to Death Memorial, a traveling mural created by NSC that includes a wall of 22,000 engraved pills. Each pill is carved with an image of a face to represent each fatal overdose in 2016.

“I get overwhelmed every time I see the wall,” one man says during the video, “because I was really close to being on this wall myself.”

Results of a recent survey conducted by NSC show that although 1 in 4 Americans have a personal connection to the opioid epidemic, 40 percent are not concerned about the potential health threat the drugs pose.

“The most important thing to know about this crisis is not the numbers and statistics, but the faces,” NSC President and CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman said in a Dec. 5 press release. “The data speak to our head, but the individual stories speak to our hearts. The ‘Facing an Everyday Killer’ video not only puts an image on the scope of the problem, but also encourages actions that will help us eliminate these preventable deaths.”

NSC is encouraging people to share the video on social media platforms using the hashtag #StopEverydayKillers.