Humanizing Drug Overdoses – A Liberatory Harm Reduction Comic
An arts-based research project about overdose survival, community care, and how we keep us safe.
Humanizing Drug Overdoses in Colorado: A Liberatory Harm Reduction Comic Made with Sex Workers and People Who Use Drugs is a community-engaged, arts-based research collaboration published in August 2025 in the peer-reviewed Journal of American Folklore.
Focused on overdose, stigma, Harm Reduction, sex work, and drug user health in Colorado, the project was co-led by Dr. Marty Otañez, a community-engaged researcher and CU Denver professor of anthropology, alongside Betsy Craft, Burges, Talley, and Guerrero. The comic centers Chloe, a sex worker and person who uses drugs, during an overdose incident at her workplace in Colorado. Chloe’s story is based on Betsy’s overdose survival narrative and reflects the stigma, trauma, survival, and lifesaving knowledge carried by people who use drugs and sex workers.
About the Method
This comic grew out of the Naloxone Champions project through a community-engaged research partnership between Dr. Marty Otañez and Betsy as a storyteller, co-author, and community partner.
Grounded in arts-based and ethnographic methods, the research team worked with artist Ven Talley to bring Chloe’s story into image, dialogue, and narrative. The process centered careful collaboration, community accountability, and representation that avoided stigma, shock value, or harmful imagery while making visible the lifesaving knowledge that often remains outside public health data.
Rather than treating people who use drugs and sex workers as subjects of study, this method positions them as narrators, knowledge-holders, and true first responders in the overdose crisis. Through community-engaged storytelling, the comic elevates Liberatory Harm Reduction, compassionate overdose care, and overdose prevention centers as community-rooted responses shaped by people closest to the crisis.