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What are policies to help people who use heroin to stay safe?
Drug policies should be rooted in health, not criminalization.
There are many policies we can pass at the local, state, and federal level to help people who use heroin to stay safe.
- Invest in addiction services. A full range of addiction services—including counseling, medications, long-term treatment, and recovery housing—should be available to individuals. Personalized support reduces overdose risk and improves recovery chances.
- Expand access to addiction medications. Medications like methadone and buprenorphine promote recovery and save lives by reducing opioid cravings and withdrawal symptoms, while cutting overdose risk in half. They should be widely available, including in jails and prisons.
- Address demand (root causes of heroin use). Heroin offers pain relief— many people use it to cope with physical or emotional pain. Ensuring people have access to housing, community, mental health services, and jobs can help address why people are using.
- Increase access to interventions like naloxone and sterile supplies that reduce overdose deaths and infectious diseases. Naloxone saves lives by immediately reversing an active opioid/fentanyl overdose. Sterile supplies like syringes and smoking kits reduce the transmission of infectious diseases. These supplies should be widely available to people who use drugs, and their use and possession should not be criminalized.”
- Authorize overdose prevention centers (OPC) on the state and local level. These centers provide connections to care and can respond to an active overdose at its earliest sign, preventing overdose deaths, saving lives, and promoting recovery in the process.
- Ensure people have access to their basic needs, like housing. Offer retroactive record clearing and the removal of civil penalties for drug convictions so people have more access to jobs, housing, and benefits.
- Prioritize a health approach to drugs, end criminal penalties. Shift drug policy from criminal penalties to public health, focusing on treatment, housing, jobs, healthcare, overdose prevention, and crisis response teams to provide effective support and resources.
- Improve drug checking and data collection. This will help us better understand the current drug supply, create warnings, and offer better solutions.
- Expand research and services for polysubstance use. Many people with substance use disorders use multiple drugs. Research and addiction services must account for polysubstance use to improve services and outcomes.
Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) recommends a comprehensive, health-based response to the overdose crisis to keep people safe and healthy. There is growing public acceptance of the fact that drug use is a health issue, not a criminal one.
Unfortunately, some elected officials and members of law enforcement continue to call for draconian criminal policies to drive up support for policies that hurt people instead of helping them.
