As Colorado communities face the most toxic drug supply we’ve ever seen, reality is being approached in two very different ways.
Most experts advocate for evolving drug education as part of a person-centered approach. Meanwhile, those driven by emotion and reaction double down on what got us here — increasing penalties for possession, limiting access to proven harm reduction strategies, and spreading false and ideologically motivated misinformation that only make the problem worse.
Harm reduction strategies reduce deaths, reconnect people to a health care system they’ve been unable to trust, and provide scientifically sound, data-backed education, especially for youth. Those strategies include nonjudgmental provision of supplies (sterile syringes, naloxone, fentanyl test strips), education (overdose prevention/response, safer use, safer sex), and help with care (for treatment and prevention, behavioral and physical health care and housing).
These strategies are demonstrated to save lives and save taxpayers money.
In the face of a rapidly evolving drug crisis, our responsibility is to share the facts to keep our communities safe, regardless of how uncomfortable you are with the idea of people using drugs.
Colorado’s standard approach to education isn’t working. I’ve been through DARE programs, like many of my friends lost to overdose, and drug education hasn’t improved. Like the students I hear from today, we knew we were being lied to. Yet, we still tell youth, “If you try weed, you’ll end up using needles.”
We knew better and so do they. But who can we trust to give us the right information?
Over 50 years of “drug war” education rooted in “just say no!” has only resulted in more overdoses, more people in jail, and more harm to communities, especially those already marginalized.
The “good ol’ days” of a relatively stable and safer drug supply are over — anyone could get one batch of drugs Monday and another Tuesday, both being completely different combinations of drugs without any knowledge of the risks, now or in the future.
Today, fentanyl and xylazine dominate headlines, while on the street we already see increasingly deadlier combinations with benzodiazepines, nitazines, tranquilizers and other potent drugs. These conditions result in several crises, the worst being high rates of overdose and increasing hesitancy to access the few forms of treatment available. (Colorado last year had 1,097 fentanyl-related overdose deaths versus 222 in 2019.)
Currently, most of our health care system in Colorado is unable to safely or effectively manage withdrawal from fentanyl alone, let alone concurrent fentanyl, xylazine and benzo dependency.
Harm reduction works because it prioritizes the input of those most affected, accurate drug education, compassion and evidence-based solutions. We need to take that demonstrable success and expand it by integrating peer-led education, community outreach programs, prevention, syringe services and competent substance use disorder care into a comprehensive approach.
I often hear opponents of harm reduction say we should spend our time and resources on treatment and recovery supports, not “enabling drug use.” The thing is, harm reduction recognizes the value in these components, but no one is fighting against those things (though they’re vocal about the health care reforms necessary to truly enhance access to and quality of treatment options).
If one-third of Colorado’s policymakers were saying we need to reduce the number of treatment beds in the community, I’d be fighting those policies, too. That is not what’s happening.
I see young people every day in Jefferson County in the Syringe Service Program who say things like, “I wish I would have known what I know now before I got to this point.” We owe it to our youth and their families to recognize and then tell them the truth: People have always used drugs and always will, there’s reality and there’s ideology, and if you choose to use, here’s what you need to know and where you can go to get real help.
Organizations like the Drug Policy Alliance have built a foundation to transform the way we educate people about drugs with their safety-first curriculum. Campaigns like Keep the Party Safe use facts to steer young people to information and resources they can trust.
We must ground our approach to this crisis with the same values we use when approaching other problems in our Colorado communities: empathy, facts/evidence and community collaboration. We need to change education and intervention strategies to respond to the complexities of today’s drug landscape.
Parents, educators, administrators and policymakers have two groups willing to get on the right track: public health experts and those needing the education, the youth. We must leverage real-time data and evidence to help youth lead the design of the curriculums built for them. I hear them begging, “nothing about us without us!” Do you?
Saturday is International Overdose Awareness Day. Take time to consider your values, your community and your loved ones, especially the youth. What changes are you willing to make to turn the tide? What will it take to abandon a lifetime of misinformation and fear to embrace facts and evidence? What price are you willing to pay to keep doing what got us here and stay comfortable?
Michael Miller, who uses drugs and is in recovery from a chaotic relationship to them, lives in Aurora and is the HIV and Harm Reduction Program Manager and a drug policy expert at Jefferson County Public Health. (All views are my own and do not reflect those of organizations I serve.)
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