Friend,
We all want ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities to be safe and healthy. It’s normal to feel scared when you hear about fentanyl and the overdose crisis. Unfortunately, so much of the information out there promotes fear and criminalization instead of health policies that will help people.
To address our collective safety and well-being — and save lives — information about drugs must be factual so people can make safer choices. And our responses to people who use drugs must be rooted in health.
Check out our factsheet to learn more about fentanyl and the policies we need to save lives.
Most people agree that drug use is a health issue, not a crime. Yet the U.S. continues to criminalize people for using drugs while tragic overdose deaths skyrocket.
Make no mistake: the drug war created the conditions that led to the overdose crisis, and the unsafe drug supply with fentanyl driving deaths. Law enforcement crackdowns on prescription opioids and heroin led to fentanyl overtaking the illicit drug supply. And now we’re seeing it again. Crackdowns on fentanyl are leading to even more unknown and potentially potent substances in the drug supply.
Many people are dying of overdose accidentally simply because they don’t know what they are taking. And more punishment just increases harm. It makes people afraid to seek help and pushes them into risky situations like using alone.
Learning the facts about fentanyl and other drugs is a crucial way to keep each other safer as we fight to replace punitive policies with health-based solutions.
