by Brenda Siegel | Jul 7, 2021 | Blog, Criminal Justice, Featured, Opioid Crisis
On June 1, Vermont became the first state in the nation to remove criminal penalties for possession of “therapeutic amounts” of buprenorphine. This amounts to a one- to two-week supply of this lifesaving treatment for people who suffer from Opioid Use Disorder....
by Mike Tipping | Jan 16, 2020 | Blog, Democracy, Featured, Health, Opioid Crisis
In a conversation with a constituent last week, U.S. Senator Susan Collins at first flatly denied she had accepted money from both the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, and drug company giant Eli Lilly. The Sacklers have admitted to misleadingly...
by Priscilla Robinson | Jan 15, 2020 | Blog, Featured, Opioid Crisis
Governor Murphy just told us fewer New Jerseyans died last year from preventable overdoses than the year before. That’s good news. But we agree with Governor Murphy that 3,021 lives lost is not a number to celebrate. Because each of these lives was a mother, a father,...
by Joy Blackwood | Jan 13, 2020 | Blog, Featured, Health, Opioid Crisis
“How our country talks about the war on drugs is backwards,” said Kassandra Frederique, in her opening remarks to the first-ever convening of the People’s Action Overdose Crisis Cohort in Washington, D.C.“Criminalization of drug use and drug prohibition was no...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 23, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health, Inequality, Opioid Crisis
Last week didn’t go so well for the Mexican druglord Joaquín Guzmán Loera. A federal district court sentenced the notorious “El Chapo” to life in prison. The 62-year-old will almost certainly, notes the New York Times, be “spending the rest of his life behind bars.”...
by Jerad Halcott | Jun 13, 2019 | Blog, Criminal Justice, Featured, Health, Opioid Crisis
To save lives from our opioid epidemic, we have to meet drug users where they are. I know: I’m living proof. My name is Jerad Halcott, and I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. At ten, I was huffing prescription drugs, then I moved on to stronger stuff. At fifteen,...
