SUD Treatment & Harm Reduction

Criminalization is not a solution to addiction. It has not solved the overdose crisis or open-air drug use. It has not helped people using substances stop using them nor led to the long-term public safety we want to see. To make our communities safer and our residents healthier, we need policies that provide a public health approach to solving what is fundamentally a public health crisis.

Make Addiction Treatment a Guaranteed Part of Healthcare

• Universal healthcare that fully includes substance use treatment, including outpatient care, inpatient care, medication-supported recovery, detox, recovery support, and long-term follow-up services. Instead of costly ER visits, we must provide preventative care that minimizes crises and helps people move off of substance use.

Treat Harm Reduction as Public Health
Harm reduction saves lives. It keeps people alive long enough to access treatment, reduces overdose deaths, lowers the spread of infectious disease, and creates trusted pathways into care.

• Fund community-based harm reduction programs, outreach teams, and evidence-based strategies that reduce death instead of making people hide in more dangerous conditions.

• Make overdose prevention tools like naloxone and fentanyl testing strips easily accessible.

• Establish more overdose prevention centers and clean syringe locations to drastically reduce discarded needles on our streets and bring substance users in contact with treatment programs. 

• Properly fund advertising and outreach for programs so that information actually reaches the people who need services.

Create Pathways from the Street to Stability
People do not recover in a vacuum. Treatment works better when it is connected to housing, case management, mental health care, and community support. New York needs:

• Data-proven housing-first policies that provide livable housing conditions to bring people off the street with wrap-around services like addiction treatment and mental health services.