TAKE ACTION: TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO STAY THE COURSE – DO NOT CRIMINALIZE DRUG ADDICTION

Act Now

When Oregon’s 2024 Legislative Session starts in February, lawmakers will need to make a decision: support real solutions and real healing by investing in the addiction treatment and housing solutions that Oregonians desperately need or return to the failed racist and classist tactics of the war on drugs that wasted billions of tax dollars criminalizing drug addiction, especially amongst Black, brown, and low-income people.

50 years of the war on drugs worsened the drug addiction crisis in our country and caused enormous harm to our Black, brown, and low-income neighbors. Oregon cannot afford to move backwards and reenact these destructive policies that will divert tax dollars away from real solutions and make the drug addiction and homelessness crises more expensive and difficult to solve. Oregon lawmakers must focus on enacting and funding real solutions that address the root causes of addiction, homelessness, poverty, and crime.

WE NEED YOU to message your lawmakers and tell them to stay the course and continue investing in the full spectrum of addiction care and recovery services along with short and long-term affordable housing. Lawmakers should also support work programs for trash clean-up and neighborhood revitalization and programs that send crisis counselors, instead of police, to respond to 911 calls about people having mental health or addiction crises.

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Your Message

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Subject

Dear Oregon Lawmakers,

Thank you for your tireless work advocating for our state. Please stay focused on funding and investing in real solutions and real healing for Oregonians — not reverting back to the enormously expensive and failed policies of the war on drugs that caused enormous harms for Black, brown, and low-income Oregonians.

After 50 years of criminalization and forced treatment before the passage of Measure 110, our state faces huge crises of drug addiction and unsheltered homelessness. Oregon cannot afford to revert to criminalization because it makes drug addiction and homelessness more expensive and difficult to solve.

Oregonians already do not have enough access to the full spectrum of addiction care, including detox centers, treatment, recovery housing, and culturally sensitive wraparound services that are essential to successful healing. Hundreds of people are turned away from treatment services because there is not enough supply to meet demand. Those that are able to detox are often sent back to the streets, with no follow-up care or temporary or transitional housing to support them with their healing.

Message Body

Stay the course this legislative session and uphold real solutions for healing, not more jails and prisons.

Please invest in the full spectrum of addiction care and recovery services along with short and long-term affordable housing.

Also, please support work programs for trash clean-up and neighborhood revitalization and programs that send crisis counselors, instead of police, to respond to 911 calls about people having mental health or addiction crises.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]

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TAKE ACTION: TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO STAY THE COURSE – DO NOT CRIMINALIZE DRUG ADDICTION

Act Now

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