Families With Loved Ones Lost to Overdose Oppose Criminalization, Call For Health Solutions
As people who have lost loved ones to overdose, we know saving lives requires health solutions. Please join with more than 400 people who have signed our letter 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 Lawmakers:
There is a tragic overdose crisis in the United States. More than 100,000 people were lost last year alone. We know the pain firsthand. We have lost our loved ones to overdose. And through the pain of our loss and grief, we see that there is another horrific tragedy unfolding. Opportunistic politicians supported by law enforcement are using the overdose crisis and parents' grief to pass harsh drug laws that will only continue to fill our morgues and prisons. Punitive laws will not bring our loved ones back, but they will subject other parents’ children to more suffering and deny them the support that can keep them alive.
Treating problematic drug use as a health issue, instead of a criminal one, is the best way to keep our families safe and healthy. We call on you to oppose punitive laws that will only make the overdose crisis worse.
- No more laws for drug-induced homicide that charge people with murder when they sell or share drugs that result in a fatal overdose. Most of these laws punish family, friends, or people involved with low-level selling. They do not reduce drug use, sales, or deadly overdoses that are often fentanyl-involved. But they do cost lives because fear of prosecution deters people from seeking help in an emergency.
- No more laws creating severe mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. These policies target people with minor roles in sales, many of whom also use drugs themselves. People caught selling even the smallest amount could automatically be given years in prison.
- No more laws increasing sentencing for possession of drugs for personal use. Arresting and incarcerating people for drugs has failed to keep us safe. Putting people behind bars can force them into withdrawal which can increase the chance of fatal overdose. And people are at much higher risk of a drug overdose after being released from prison.
Instead, in honor of the memory of our loved ones, we demand health-based solutions focused on overdose prevention, harm reduction, and treatment including:
- Decriminalize drugs and invest in health alternatives. Instead of arresting and jailing people for drug possession, we must reinvest the savings into addiction services and social supports.
- Syringe services, drug checking services, and access to lifesaving medications like naloxone. These reduce harm by curbing the spread of infectious diseases, detecting adulteration in the drug supply, and reversing opioid overdoses.
- Overdose prevention centers where trained professionals can reverse fatal overdoses and connect people with a range of ongoing care.
- Evidence-based, effective, voluntary treatment options available on-demand for those that want help. This includes access on-demand for the opioid use disorder medications methadone and buprenorphine.
- Reality-based drug education to equip youth with accurate information to reduce potential harms of drug use.
- Ending punishment for drugs within civil systems so that people no longer face barriers to basic needs such as food, housing, and jobs.
We are fighting to save lives so no one else has to go through the heartbreak and pain we’ve experienced. We can’t punish our way out of the overdose crisis. We call on lawmakers to address it by opposing harsh punishment for drugs and enacting health responses that save lives.