To prevent our friends, family, and neighbors in Colorado from dying of drug overdose, our response to the overdose crisis MUST be public health focused and led
In recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31, Harm Reduction Action Center + Bring Our Neighbors Home are teaming up to share the truth about drug overdose, and to empower you (yes, YOU!) to take simple steps to advocate for change.
Learn more & join us for each day of action below!
Naloxone Pledge
Harm Reduction
This is the deadliest overdose crisis in human history.
With 106,980 deaths from overdose in 2022, the US has an the US now has an overdose mortality rate that’s about 20 times the worldwide average and more than double that of the next closest nation. 52 years since the War on Drugs was declared, illicit substances remain inexpensive, readily available — and deadlier than ever.
What are Colorado policy makers doing about it?
For decades, lawmakers across the U.S. have advanced ineffective, stigmatizing, carceral drug policies that have pushed people into an increasingly dangerous, unregulated drug market and criminalized them for what they chose to put in their bodies. Our current overdose crisis is the direct result of that misguided approach.
Colorado had appeared to be firmly on the path towards decriminalizing low-level drug possession when, in 2019, state lawmakers defelonized the single-use possession of all Schedule I and II drugs. But in 2022, spooked by the surge in fentanyl-involved deaths and looking to forestall being painted as “soft” on drugs and crime in an election year, Democrats in the legislature introduced and passed the Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Act. This made possession of more than 1 gram of any substance—even baby aspirin—containing even a dusting of fentanyl a felony.
The bill also contained “historic funding” for harm reduction—largely funneled through the state’s jails and prisons. A prime sponsor, Rep. Leslie Herod (D), has since called the legislation a mistake. “As I watch the Department of Corrections ask for more beds to fill with folks who are addicted without having enough providers to provide mental health services to those people? We were wrong. We didn’t get it right.” -- Leslie Herod
Public health experts tell us this approach will continue to cost lives.
“As a direct service provider we know that it’s crucial for the streets to influence the policy at the capitol. It’s increasingly difficult AND DEADLY to have to work under archaic drug policies, and legislators telling US what WE need to do. To save lives, we need to tell THEM what to do.”
- Lisa Raville | Executive Director, HRAC
Join us for a week of action
AUGUST 28 - SEPT 02
Use the sign up form or follow Bring Our Neighbors Home and Harm Reduction Action Center on Twitter for simple actions you can take to advocate for policies to prevent overdose and save lives.
We’ll help you contact your leaders and advocate for data-driven solutions, including:
✔ Widespread fentanyl and overdose education programs
✔ Widespread access to naloxone
✔ Widespread access to drug testing strips
✔ Treatment on demand, at low or no cost
✔ Safe use sites and safe supply
✔ Opposing laws that reduce access to fentanyl test strips
✔ Opposing laws that reduce access to naloxone
✔ Opposing laws that criminalize drug use and drug users
✔ Challenging the stigma surrounding drug use
✔ Eliminating stigma surrounding people who use drugs