Tell Gov. Hochul to expand overdose prevention centers and fund harm reduction infrastructure

Overdose continues to kill New Yorkers at alarming rates, claiming more lives than car accidents, suicides, and homicides combined. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Harm reduction is a public health approach that provides support, resources, and education to reduce harms related to substance use. This includes providing safer spaces to use drugs to prevent overdose death, such as overdose prevention centers (OPCs).

Harm reduction saves lives by treating people who use drugs with respect, dignity, and compassion.

We need to build on our advocacy that led to the nation’s first sanctioned overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in New York City, which have successfully intervened in over 1,600 overdoses since opening in November of 2021. Unfortunately, because OPCs are awaiting state authorization, this lifesaving approach remains unavailable to the vast majority of people who need it.

That’s why we’ve been pushing the Governor to expand overdose prevention centers and fund harm reduction infrastructure across the state. Please join us by urging Gov. Hochul to take executive action to expand OPCs and harm reduction statewide, immediately.

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Your Message

Subject

Dear Governor Hochul,

Message Body

I am your constituent and I urge you to expand Overdose Prevention Centers and fund harm reduction infrastructure immediately.
 
Over 20,000 New Yorkers have died from preventable overdoses since you took office and this number grows every 90 minutes. For the past 10 years, overdose has remained the leading cause of death for homeless New Yorkers living in New York City. Every day, 19 New Yorkers die from a preventable overdose across New York State. Black New Yorkers’ overdose rates have increased five-fold since the beginning of the pandemic, and Latinx rates have quadrupled. 
    
Because you have yet to expand OPCs and increase funding for harm reduction services, these innovative and life saving approaches remain unavailable to the vast majority of people who need it.  We can’t afford to delay! We need a leader that demonstrates to the entire country that New York is and has been a beacon of harm reduction, and saving lives with harm reduction is good policy and good politics. Anything less than your immediate executive action to expand OPCs and harm reduction funding will inevitably result in more New Yorkers needlessly dying from preventable overdoses.
 
Please expand overdose prevention centers and increase funding for harm reduction immediately. Thank you.

Sincerely,

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

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