Bush's Drug Policy: Just Say No - or Die

Overdose Rescue Kits Save Lives
Richard Knox of National Public Radio

Every year, overdoses of heroin and opiates, such as Oxycontin, kill more drug users than AIDS, hepatitis or homicide. And the number of overdoses has gone up dramatically over the past decade.

But now, public health workers from New York to Los Angeles, North Carolina to New Mexico, are preventing thousands of deaths by giving $9.50 rescue kits to drug users. The kits turn drug users into first responders by giving them the tools to save a life.

Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, opposes the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs. More ...

Dr. Madras’ opposition to the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs clearly indicates the administration’s callous disregard for the politically powerless, economically-disadvantaged underclass whose lives are directly impacted by the fiasco we call the War on Drugs. Until we recognize that drug abuse is a medical problem – and not a criminal problem – we’ll continue wasting millions of dollars, and countless lives, in a fear-driven frenzy to incarcerate generations of poor Americans whose only crime was in their attempt to escape, albeit momentarily, the pain of a future with little hope.