Criminalization is driving the overdose crisis:
Criminalization creates stigma and fear of punishment which prevents people from seeking support and pushes people to use alone so they have no help in an overdose emergency.
Criminalization creates stigma and fear of punishment which prevents people from seeking support and pushes people to use alone so they have no help in an overdose emergency.
https://twitter.com/DrugPolicyOrg/status/1432845332665229315
Criminalization makes the drug supply less safe, resulting in an unregulated drug market with unknown, adulterated substances that put people at greater risk of overdose.
Criminalization wastes resources on arrest, incarceration, and punishment instead of investing in critical health, overdose prevention, and harm reduction services that are proven to save lives.
Tougher penalties create perverse incentives for manufacturers. Underground chemists have found new ways of evading enhanced penalties. This has led to more potent forms of fentanyl that are more likely to cause overdose deaths.
Incarceration can result in a person losing their tolerance to drugs. So, if they are not ready to get sober and go right back to using drugs when they get out of the program, they have a much higher likelihood of experiencing a fatal overdose.
People die due to overdoes in prison at high rates (and treatment or medications for substance use disorder are rarely available in prison). From 2001 to 2018, the number of people who have died of drug or alcohol intoxication in state prisons increased by more than 600%
For more than 50 years, the U.S. has been criminalizing people for using drugs and overdose has not decreased. In fact, it’s skyrocketing.
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