Measures to combat overdose crisis include stiffer penalties but some worry it may signal a turn away from harm reduction
a national plan prioritizing harm reduction policies – which include distributing strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl in substances and prevent overdoses – in attempts to prevent death and illness among drug users.
Sylla added that criminalizing drugs would have already reduced trafficking or overdoses if it was possible for such an action to do that. It hadn’t done that – or incentivized behavior change among drug users – because it can’t, she said. “His support for harsher penalties for fentanyl-related substances – which will result in broader application of mandatory minimum sentencing and disproportionately harm Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities – in the same breath is incredibly counterproductive and fails to recognize how we got to this place to begin with,” the Drug Policy Alliance’s director of the office of federal affairs, Maritza Perez Medina, said.
Meanwhile, other experts have praised the Biden administration’s approach to the overdose crisis, which includes disrupting the drug’s trafficking and sale while also expanding access to treatment, recovery and harm reduction tools such as sterilized needles and smoking equipment.
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