Model and Strategy
DPA is at the frontlines of expanding access to interventions that will improve the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs and those struggling with addiction. We primarily work on public policy, promoting changes to laws and practices so more people can get the help they need. The project we propose has three purposes:
- Establish overdose prevention centers. Also called supervised consumption sites, they are proven to save lives, reduce public drug use, and connect people with other services. We intend to make this cutting-edge intervention finally available in the United States.
- Improve medication-assisted treatment. Methadone and buprenorphine are the gold standard for the treatment of opioid use disorder. We seek to increase federal funding, remove senseless barriers that prevent doctors from prescribing these medications, and make them available to people in jails and prisons.
- Provide honest drug education to teenagers. Simplistic “just say no” messages and fear-mongering do more harm than good. We seek to promote Safety First, our innovative science-based curriculum that empowers young people with practical information about health, addiction, and overdose.
Impact
DPA’s project has the potential to transform the lives of tens of thousands of people struggling with addiction and to educate thousands of young people. The impact we seek is threefold:
Establishing overdose prevention centers will help people who are among the hardest to reach, keep them alive, get them off the streets, and connect them to a system of care. We are leading advocacy campaigns in California and New York that would finally authorize such centers, and in Congress to support their implementation. We are also building campaigns in Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Utah, and Vermont, and are supporting litigation to protect overdose prevention centers from federal interference.
Improving access to medication-assisted treatment will get tens of thousands of people who suffer from opioid use disorder into programs that will stabilize their lives and allow them to recover from addiction. At the federal level, we are advocating for millions of dollars in new funding for treatment in jails and prisons and for the removal of needless regulations that prevent these medications from being more widely available. We are also building a far-reaching campaign to improve access in California, and are leading a campaign in New York to start medication-assisted treatment programs in jails and prisons.
Providing honest drug education will empower young people to make better decisions and protect their health and the health of their friends. After successfully piloting our Safety First curriculum to 9th and 10th graders in New York and San Francisco, we are now making it available for the first time to the public and promoting its wider adoption in classrooms across the country. Safety First has the potential to reach tens of thousands of teenagers.
Leadership
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Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno
Executive Director
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Lindsay LaSalle
Director of Public Health Law and Policy