New Drug Control Strategy: Steps up Harm Reduction...and the DEA

The White House recently released its National Drug Control Strategy. For the first time in history, harm reduction was included as a major pillar recognizing its crucial role in saving lives to curb the tragic overdose crisis.

Although it’s encouraging to see movement in the right direction, much of the drug war status quo continues including a major increase in funding for the Drug Enforcement Administration and other law enforcement agencies.

Criminalization and enforcement only exacerbate harm and overdose deaths. That’s why we must shift towards evidence-based public health solutions that save lives. Ultimately, Congress will decide how to fund the drug strategy: tell them to prioritize harm reduction and overdose prevention in the federal budget.

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Dear Representative/Senator,

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I’m happy to see that the Biden-Harris Administration included access and funding for harm reduction services and reducing barriers to life-saving medications in the National Drug Control Strategy. I hope Congress will also prioritize this critical funding including the harm reduction community’s request for $43 million (a needed increase of $25 million) in the FY23 CDC's Infectious Diseases and the Overdose Epidemic Program which supports life-saving overdose and infectious diseases prevention and treatment services.

The United States is facing an urgent crisis involving the use and misuse of opioids such as heroin, illicitly manufactured fentanyl, methamphetamines, cocaine, prescription opioids and other drugs. It is urgent that Congress respond to the unprecedented overdose crisis that continues to worsen in order to save lives. The most recent CDC data shows the U.S. experienced an unprecedented 107,600 annual deaths from overdose in 2021, a 15 percent increase from 2020, itself a record year. Accidental drug overdose is among the leading causes of death for those under 50.

Syringe services programs are first line responders that prevent overdoses and infectious diseases transmission and connect individuals to medical care, including Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment. SSPs are one of the most effective ways to prevent drug overdose as well as engage and connect individuals to care who use drugs, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. SSPs are particularly effective at distributing naloxone - a drug which can prevent overdose deaths - both to people at risk of overdose as well as to other community members.  A study from Massachusetts found a 46% reduction in opioid overdose mortality rates with substantially increased access to naloxone. $43 million for this line item in FY2023 would help currently operating SSPs address funding needs.

Prioritizing federal spending on public health rather than enforcement and interdiction is the best path forward. With nearly 108,000 of our friends, family and neighbors' lives being lost to drug overdose during the past year–and that number continuing to increase–and the overdose crisis now costing the U.S. economy over $1 trillion annually, Congress must embrace the evidence-based public health approaches we know work and save lives. I urge you to reconsider funding that does not support this public health mission. We ask that you directly weigh in with House and Senate Appropriators to support $43 million in the FY23 CDC's Infectious Diseases and the Overdose Epidemic Program to address this severe gap in our national response to overdoses.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]

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