Drug Policy

As parents and family members who have lost loved ones to overdose, we know saving lives requires health solutions. Please join with more than 700 people who have signed our letter in urging lawmakers to oppose more punishment and instead embrace lifesaving health responses to the overdose crisis.

My son Michael was a pioneer in Harm Reduction in New York City. In many ways, he was my teacher. He taught me about Harm Reduction, that people like him need respect and compassion, and that if something happened to him, he wanted her to continue his work in Harm Reduction to help others like him. This is our story.

There are politically motivated people who attempt to co-opt the grief of a parent who has lost a child to overdose to implement more punitive drug laws. Susan knows these laws cause only more harm and more deaths.

As people who have experienced the profound pain of losing loved ones to overdose, we understand that addressing this crisis requires compassionate and effective health solutions. We believe that punitive measures only exacerbate the problem, pushing individuals further into the shadows and away from the help they desperately need. That’s why we are calling on you to join us in advocating for a more humane and lifesaving approach.

The debate over how to handle drug use and distribution is complex, involving various approaches that significantly impact public health, safety, and criminal justice systems. Here we break down the key differences between four primary models: the criminal market, the decriminalized model, legalization, and the free market.

Broken No More’s Pre-Mother’s Day Press Conference opposing punitive drug laws and supporting health-based policies was moving and powerful. Mothers who have lost loved ones to overdose urged lawmakers to halt the influx of draconian drug laws that will not reduce overdose deaths but will instead fill our prisons without helping those struggling with substance use disorder. If you want to understand the harms of punitive drug laws and how policies based on public health, Harm Reduction, and science will keep our loved ones safe and alive then this video is well worth your time.

This nation is experiencing an unprecedented increase in overdose deaths resulting in over 100,000 deaths per year. Two out of three of these overdose deaths involve illicitly manufactured fentanyl. In response to this overdose crisis, several states have enacted Drug-Induced Homicide (DIH) Laws. The number of prosecutions under DIH laws has continued to increase as the number of overdose deaths has increased. We, the Board of Directors of Broken No More, find these DIH laws and the resulting prosecutions to be misguided in their intent, naïve in the beliefs underpinning their use, and damaging to individuals, families, and society as a whole.

Republican state Senators Sally Turner and Sue Rezin recently introduced a bill that, if enacted, would double down on the failed war on drugs by imposing harsh penalties for the distribution of drugs that contain fentanyl.

There is a belief that those of us with an opioid addiction, that we are powerless over our addiction. That is a myth. We are not powerless. But we appear powerless because the prohibition laws of this country rob us of our power. The following article originally appeared on Medium I began shooting heroin and […]

This presentation was recorded at the Harm Reduction Ohio Conference where Dr. Sam Snodgrass explains, in an easily understandable manner, that opioid addiction is an acquired disease of brain structure and function and that the molecular and cellular changes within the brain are manifested as starvation for these opioids.