Families With Loved Ones Lost to Overdose Call on Trump and Congress to Prioritize Health Over Punishment
As parents and family members who have lost loved ones to overdose, we know saving lives requires health solutions. Please join us in urging lawmakers to oppose more punishment and instead embrace lifesaving health responses to the overdose crisis. We will make this letter and its signers public and available to the media.*
Open Letter to President Trump and Lawmakers:
Every day, we wake up missing someone we love. We are the parents and family members grieving loved ones lost to overdose. This crisis takes nearly 90,000 lives each year in the U.S. The pain can feel unbearable, and we don’t want others to suffer the same devastating loss.
In honor of those we’ve lost, we urge you to prioritize health-based solutions that prevent overdoses and provide the care people urgently need:
- Make treatment available on demand. People who are ready for help face barriers of long waitlists, high costs, and too few providers.
- Expand access to lifesaving addiction medications like buprenorphine and methadone. These medications cut overdose risk in half and reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
- Distribute naloxone in communities with the highest overdose rates. This lifesaving medication reverses opioid overdoses in seconds and should be widely available, but especially for those who need it most.
- Support overdose prevention services. The drug supply is unpredictable, and fentanyl poses serious risks. Syringe programs prevent disease, test strips detect fentanyl, and overdose prevention centers respond to overdoses, divert drug use away from public spaces, and connect people to care.
- Promote evidence-based drug education, so all youth and adults have the information they need to prevent use, stay safe, or pursue recovery.
Our shared goal is to save lives. After over 50 years of the drug war, drugs are cheaper, stronger, and more available than ever, while overdose deaths have soared. We’re concerned that escalating conflict with other countries, in the name of the drug war, will only bring more violence and death. We caution against punitive measures like jail, which worsen overdose risks, destabilize individuals, and drain resources.
- Incarceration can force people into dangerous withdrawal and increase their risk of overdose upon release.
- Most people cycle in and out of jail/prisons without any meaningful connection to care or change to their circumstances.
- A drug record can block access to basic needs like food, housing, and jobs—trapping people in crisis.
- Drug-induced homicide laws punish people seeking help during an overdose emergency. These laws classify providing or selling substances that lead to an overdose as homicide, causing people to fear calling 911 or seeking lifesaving help.
- Harsh laws, like mandatory minimums, create long-term barriers to care and treatment. Judges are forced to hand down harsh sentences even if they believe a lesser punishment or different response is more appropriate.
We are fighting to save lives—so no other parent or family member has to bury their loved one and endure the pain and grief of this horrific loss. Please don’t let another family join our ranks. Save lives by prioritizing public health over punishment. Thousands of families are counting on you.