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Thank you Friend,
This Thanksgiving, we cannot help but look back on the year with both pride and appreciation. We have faced new crises, new challenges, and new uncertainties. Yet, despite the obstacles placed in our way, it has been quite the year for drug policy reform.
Here are a few of the monumental accomplishments that you – donors, activists, and allied organizations – made happen:
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In a historic, paradigm-shifting win, Oregon voters approved Measure 110 to become the first state in the nation to decriminalize the personal use and possession of all drugs while expanding access to addiction and other health services.
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We also released a federal legislative drug decriminalization proposal, to provide a roadmap to effectively end the criminalization of people who use drugs and begin repairing the harm drug enforcement has caused, especially to communities of color.
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We secured a floor vote in the U.S. House – expected next week – for the MORE Act, the most far reaching federal marijuana reform bill ever introduced in Congress. Take action and tell your Representative to vote yes on this historic piece of legislation.
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Voters in New Jersey, Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota passed measures to legalize marijuana for adult use, creating a total 15 states plus Washington D.C. that have legalized marijuana.
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Mississippi and South Dakota legalized medical marijuana, proving drug policy reform is tenable and desired in conservative states, including in the Deep South and Midwest.
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“There is no Naloxone for racism.” In an interview with Filter magazine, DPA’s executive director, Kassandra Frederique, called out the way perceived drug use and drug possession routinely serve as a justification by law enforcement to dehumanize, strip dignity from, and ultimately kill people of color.
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We advocated for COVID-19 specific drug policies to protect public health, individual rights, and the dignity and well-being of those in our communities who are most harmed by structural inequities.
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Our COVID-19 and Drug Policy Discussion Series explored the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overdose epidemic, and the on-going crises of structural racism and police violence and their harmful impact of state-imposed punishment of people involved with drugs.
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California passed the Pharmacy Access Bill, co-sponsored by DPA, to protect a pharmacist’s discretion to provide sterile syringes without a prescription, and allow adult possession of syringes for personal use - an important measure to stop the spread of HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C.
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To help meet the challenges of remote education, we launched a distance learning version of Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens, the nation’s first harm reduction-based drug education curriculum for high school students, parents, and teachers.
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Working with Immigrant Defenders and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, we drafted non-citizen protections for states and jurisdictions as they consider marijuana legalization.
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We released a new report, Criminal Justice Reform in the Fentanyl Era: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, highlighting the dangers of policymaking based on renewed drug war hysteria in response to fentanyl.
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With the Communities United for Police Reform coalition, we worked to pass the Safer New York Act, a package of bills which included the repeal of Section 50-A, which had been used to hide police misconduct, and other measures to address biased policing that targets people who use drugs. |
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We could not have made all this incredible progress without you – our supporters.
From all of us at DPA, thank you again for being a part of this movement. We are truly grateful to have you alongside us in this fight. Together, we will end this disastrous war on drugs once and for all.
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