California lawmakers have authored more than 30 bills in the Legislature this year to address fentanyl
. The tactic has drawn fierce opposition from harm reduction advocates, who say criminalizing the drug issue has historically backfired and worsened the crisis.
“It’s good for politics and publicity, but it really doesn’t get to the root of the problem of drug addiction,” said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat and chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, who called bills that increase prison sentences “a Republican playbook.” “This is not a red state crisis or a blue state crisis. This is an American crisis and it’s certainly a California crisis,” she said.
The issue is personal for Jones-Sawyer. He said he lost his uncle to heroin, an opioid similar to fentanyl, and a cousin to crack cocaine. He witnessed how public policies during the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s resulted in the mass incarceration of communities of color, noting it did not solve the drug issue.
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