By The Editorial Board
The U.S. is fighting a losing battle with the War on Drugs — arrests for drug-related offenses continue to soar and deaths from drug overdoses are only increasing. The U.S. continues to disregard how drugs impact the lives of so many in the name of justice, and a change needs to be made. Instead of contributing to the over-criminalization of drugs, lawmakers should make a more significant effort with harm reduction. Lives are at stake.
Fentanyl accounted for 67,325 preventable deaths in 2021, an increase of 26% from the previous year and 1.16 million people are arrested for drug-related offenses each year, a number that makes up for 26% of all arrests and are the most common arrest in Texas.
According to the Center for Disease Control, in April 2015 there were 2,533 deaths from drug overdoses in Texas. That number was 4,941 in April 2022. This problem has been building momentum nation-wide.
67,325 deaths were preventable. Instead of focusing on incarcerating, over policing and arresting more, the justice system and lawmakers should refocus their efforts to harm reduction.
Criminalizing addiction is not a productive or long-term solution to drugs in the community. Texas lawmakers are taking steps in the right direction with the Texas Senate passing a bill in March that increases the penalty surrounding fentanyl, classifying overdoses as poisonings and allows for people who are involved with production and selling to be charged with murder.
Another positive action is the Texas House voted to approve a bill to decriminalize fentanyl testing strips, which indicate if a drug contains the opioid. These would give people a life-saving opportunity to check what they are taking.
This could be seen as encouraging drug use or loosening up on our ideas surrounding drugs, however, if someone is struggling with addiction or taking some sort of drug recreationally, it’s not the government’s place to withhold a safety precaution that could mean life or death.
According to the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, harm reduction’s goal “is to keep users of drugs healthy and safe; it’s grounded in the idea that people who use drugs deserve fundamental rights.”
Someone who might be seeking to stop is more likely to reach out for help without fear for the law, another reason to make changes to the laws on certain drugs. Because it would be government-regulated, everything would go through a number of inspections and tests to make sure the product is safe for consumers. Almost completely eliminating the possibility of buying things laced with fentanyl.
So much time, energy and money goes into the war on drugs, and in March of last year $42.5 billion was requested by the president’s 2023 budget for the National Drug Control Program. Not nearly enough goes into aiding the people it’s impacting most. As a society we know more about how badly you can get punished for drug use than we do about how much we can help someone who needs it.
