Friend,
This year marks DPA’s twentieth anniversary. Thanks to supporters like you, we’ve made unprecedented progress over the last two decades.
Check out our slideshow featuring twenty of our major victories and help us celebrate all we’ve accomplished together!
You’ve helped us make history by moving drug policy reform from the fringes into the mainstream while continuing to push the envelope in the fight to end the drug war. Here are some of the wins we’re most proud of:
- Drafted and helped pass the country’s first naloxone access and first “Good Samaritan” laws in New Mexico in 2001 and 2007 respectively – landmark, life-saving pieces of legislation. Now, all 50 states and D.C. have laws making it easier to obtain naloxone while 40 states and D.C. have Good Samaritan laws to provide limited criminal immunity from arrest to people who call emergency responders to the scene of an overdose;
- Led a coalition that reduced the federal crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity from 100:1 to 18:1 when President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010;
- Shaped the first adult use marijuana legalization wins in Colorado, Washington, and Uruguay in 2012. Four years later we co-drafted Prop 64 in California which pushed the envelope with cutting edge provisions to undo the most egregious harms of marijuana prohibition on impacted communities of color and the environment;
- Launched Safety First, the first of its kind drug education curriculum that provides honest and scientifically accurate information that empowers teens to reduce drug-related risks;
- With DPA’s political arm, Drug Policy Action, spearheaded efforts to get a groundbreaking all drug decriminalization bill on the 2020 ballot in November in Oregon. If passed it would serve as a model for states across the country, and so much more.
Our victories would not be possible without you. Here’s to twenty more years of working together to advance drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
With gratitude,
Richard Burns
Interim Executive Director
Drug Policy Alliance
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