DAY 4: Overdose Prevention Sites & Safe Supply
Stop fighting the war on drugs, start fighting a war on drug-related deaths.
Criminalization won’t solve the overdose crisis. The data is in. We know what works. Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply are programs we could implement today that would radically reverse the yearly exponential rise in deaths from overdose.
If we want to prevent needless death, we must act boldly.
By accepting the fact that people will use drugs regardless of how harshly they are criminalized for it, we can figure out how to keep them alive.
Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply will help:
#1. Stop people from using alone
#2. Make sure the drugs people are using are safe
These two key interventions will save countless lives.
Overdose Prevention Sites
Overdose Prevention Sites (OPS) are sanctioned spaces designed to allow people who already use drugs to do so safely, under the supervision of trained staff, with access to sterile equipment as well as tools to check their supply to determine what’s in their drugs.
Staff do not provide drugs (the drugs are pre-obtained) but they are available to:
answer questions on safe practices
monitor for overdose
administer first aid if needed
Participants can safely dispose of their syringes, and also receive health care, counseling, and referrals to services (including drug treatment) should they so choose.
In the context of a wildly unpredictable and unregulated street drug supply -- overdose prevention sites simply, and importantly, keep people alive.
“People who stay silent or oppose (overdose prevention sites) will be looked at in the long lens of history like the people who fought against sexual education in schools in the 80's and 90's. They will be viewed harshly. The time to be right on this issue is now.”
Svante Myrick former Mayor, Ithaca, NY Source
Overdose Prevention Sites: the data is IN
Over 100 evidence-based, peer-reviewed studies have proven the positive benefits of OPSs.
For clients
✓ Increased dignity for people who use drugs
✓ Reduced amount and frequency of drug use
✓ Increased entry into substance use disorder treatment
✓ Increased connection to medical and social services
✓ Reduced HIV & Hepatitis C risk behavior (syringe sharing, unsafe sex)
✓ Safely managed overdoses
✓ NO OVERDOSE DEATHS (Zero overdose fatalities worldwide)
For community
✓ Reduced public drug use
✓ Reduced syringe and/or other drug paraphernalia litter
✓ Cost savings from prevention of disease, emergency medical services, and overdose deaths
By providing a safe place for people who use drugs to find connection and care without stigma or fear of criminalization, we can save lives AND create safer communities.
Safe Supply
The criminalization of drugs and people who use drugs has resulted in one of the largest public health crises of our time. Thanks to the iron law of prohibition, the North American street drug supply has been systematically contaminated with illicitly-produced fentanyl and analogues of new synthetic opioids, many orders of magnitude more potent than heroin. These are found in imprecise amounts in the street drug supply, leading to people inadvertently consuming an unpredictable drug dose and dying of overdose.
The fentanyl overdose crisis demands safe supply
Illicit fentanyl now dominates the street drug supply, with devastating results. Cheap to manufacture and 50x stronger than heroin, potency also fluctuates wildly depending upon producer and batch. Drugs in the same area have been shown to contain anywhere from 1% to 70% fentanyl, making it incredibly difficult for people who use drugs to gauge their dose safely in relation to their tolerance. This variability has ushered in the deadliest overdose crisis in human history.
“In order to reduce the amount of overdoses that are happening [we need] to get people on to a safer, regulated, known pharmaceutical source of opioids, because our opioid supply in particular is completely saturated with fentanyl.”
Dr. Gillian Kolla
Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research
These programs have:
✓ Decreased the use of unpredictable street drugs
✓ Increased public safety
✓ Reduced overdose deaths
Safe Supply: the data is IN.
Safe supply programs are based on heroin-assisted treatment programs that have been operating successfully since the 1990s and in 7 countries. People who don’t respond to other options are provided with a daily dose of pharmaceutical heroin.
By prescribing drugs to people who will use them anyway, we can protect them from a street supply that is now too deadly and unpredictable to navigate, and greatly reduce the risk of overdose deaths. This can also become an entry point for people who have been systematically excluded from the health care system, due to the stigma surrounding illicit drug use.
People have used drugs for years and years … and people will continue to use drugs for years and years. Safe supply is common sense.
The political will for policy change
4 people die of overdose every day in Colorado.
Today, four human beings will needlessly lose their lives in our state. It doesn’t have to be this way. When we say “every overdose is a policy choice”, that’s exactly what we mean. Enough is enough. We must fight for change, and demand that our lawmakers make a fundamental but necessary shift away from criminalization and punishment, and towards drug policies that are rooted in the fundamentals of harm reduction:
📧 Email your Legislators
Let Colorado legislators know you support Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply!
We’ve created a “choose your own adventure” email template below! Copy and paste and customize as you wish. Thank you for sending this crucial message!
TO: [ Your Email ]
BCC:
leslie.herod.house@state.co.us, daneya.esgar.house@state.co.us, Judy.Amabile.house@state.co.us, Jennifer.Bacon.house@state.co.us, adrienne.benavidez.house@state.co.us, Tracey.Bernett.house@state.co.us, Shannon.bird.house@state.co.us, andrew.boesenecker.house@state.co.us, yadira.caraveo.house@state.co.us, lisa.cutter.house@state.co.us, Lindsey.Daugherty.house@state.co.us, monica.duran.house@state.co.us, tony.exum.house@state.co.us, meg.froelich.house@state.co.us, serena.gonzales-gutierrez.house@state.co.us, matt@matthewgray.us, edie.hooton.house@state.co.us, Iman.Jodeh.house@state.co.us, chris.kennedy.house@state.co.us, cathy.kipp.house@state.co.us, mandy.lindsay.house@state.co.us, susan.lontine.house@state.co.us, Julie.mccluskie.house@state.co.us, Karen.McCormick.house@state.co.us, barbara.mclachlan.house@state.co.us, dafna.michaelson.jenet.house@state.co.us, kyle.mullica.house@state.co.us, David.Ortiz.house@state.co.us, Naquetta.Ricks.house@state.co.us, dylan.roberts.house@state.co.us, emily.sirota.house@state.co.us, marc.snyder.house@state.co.us, tom.sullivan.house@state.co.us, kerry.tipper.house@state.co.us, brianna.titone.house@state.co.us, alex.valdez.house@state.co.us, donald.valdez.house@state.co.us, mike.weissman.house@state.co.us, steven.woodrow.house@state.co.us, mary.young.house@state.co.us, william.lindstedt.house@state.co.us, chris.hansen.senate@state.co.us, jessie.danielson.senate@state.co.us, brittany.pettersen.senate@state.co.us, joann.ginal.senate@state.co.us, tammy.story.senate@state.co.us, julie.gonzales.senate@state.co.us, kerry.donovan.senate@state.co.us, jeff.bridges.senate@state.co.us, chris.kolker.senate@state.co.us, sonya.jaquez.lewis.senate@state.co.us, janet.buckner.senate@state.co.us, robert.rodriguez.senate@state.co.us, faith.winter.senate@state.co.us, nick.hinrichsen.senate@state.co.us, stephen.fenberg.senate@state.co.us, dominick.moreno.senate@state.co.us, rhonda.fields.senate@state.co.us, pete.lee.senate@state.co.us, james.coleman.senate@state.co.us, senatorrachelz@gmail.com, kevin.priola.senate@state.co.us
SUBJECT:
***Subject line ideas*** (or write your own!)
People Will Use Drugs. Let’s Keep Them Alive While They Do.
Why Don’t We Fight A War On Drug-Related Deaths Instead?
Get Real About Ending Overdose Deaths
Colorado Needs Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply
The Data Is Unequivocal: Safe Supply & OPSs Save Lives
The Fentanyl Crisis Demands Bold, Proven Solutions
BODY:
***Introduction***
My name is [your name] and I live in [your zip code].
August 31st is International Overdose Awareness Day, a day to raise awareness of overdose and drug-related deaths. In that spirit, I am writing to ask you to please support two critical interventions that will save the lives of Coloradans who use drugs: Overdose Prevention Sites, and Safe Supply.
If we’re going to prevent our friends, family and neighbors from continuing to die needlessly of drug overdose, Colorado must implement programs that are proven to work. The harm reduction model is the way forward out of our current crisis. This year, instead of criminalizing people, let’s keep them from dying by addressing the two things that are killing them: an unpredictable street drug supply, and using alone. Let’s implement Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply.
People will use drugs regardless of how harshly they are criminalized for it. Instead of punishing them, which never works, we can figure out how to keep them alive as the street drug supply becomes increasingly unpredictable and dangerous to navigate. Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply programs do two things really well: they stop people from using alone, and they make sure the drugs people are using are safe. Those two interventions would save countless Coloradans from dying of overdose.
Nearly 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021 in the U.S., and about two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Our country has an overdose mortality rate that is 20 times the worldwide average. If we could arrest and jail our way out of this crisis, surely it would have happened by now? We can’t keep falling back on the same criminal legal solutions that have never worked. We need policy makers who aren’t afraid to get behind the so-called “radical” solutions that have only worked everywhere they have been tried: Safe Supply and Overdose Prevention Sites (OPS).
The stakes could not be higher -- death due to drug overdose in our country is one of the leading causes of death for people under the age of 50. We need solutions.
Fortunately for us those solutions already exist! Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply are not crazy ideas -- they are being implemented successfully around the world.
***Explain OPS & Safe Supply ***
Overdose Prevention Sites (OPS) are legally-sanctioned spaces that allow people who already use drugs to do so safely, under the supervision of trained staff, with access to sterile equipment as well as tools to check their supply to determine what’s in their (self-supplied) drugs. No one who has utilized an OPS has ever died of overdose, but they have been helped into treatment and medical care at much higher rates. Despite fears that these sites are somehow “enabling” and encourage more drug use, that has not been the case. OPS have improved neighborhoods by reducing public drug use, reducing syringe / paraphernalia litter, and saving cities money on disease prevention, emergency medical services, and overdose deaths.
Safe Supply programs are based on heroin-assisted treatment programs that have been operating successfully since the 1990s in 7 countries. People who don’t respond to other options are provided with a daily dose of pharmaceutical heroin. These programs decrease the use of unpredictable street drugs, and reduce overdose deaths, all while increasing public safety.
***Make An Ask***
Overdose deaths are entirely preventable. I hope you will show the political will to do what is right and what works to save lives. Please support Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply in Colorado.
Every overdose death in Colorado -- an average of 4 deaths per day -- is a policy choice. We need to stop making that same choice, and start doing what has been proven to keep people alive. I hope you will champion Overdose Prevention Sites and Safe Supply in the Colorado legislature this year.
***Be sure to add a note of thanks***
Thank you!
I appreciate your kind consideration.
Thanks for your attention.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]