The Green Party of Monroe County acknowledges that many issues concerning addiction should be dealt with at Federal and State levels. With that, we concur with the National and State Green Parties on their platform planks on addiction.
The Green Party of Monroe County and its candidates believe all the various levels of our local government should, in their own way:
1. Educate the community on the science and myths of substance use and addiction. This includes, but is not limited to, educating themselves; public speaking; writing, sponsoring, and voting for legislation; funding education efforts; discussions with state and federal officials for support; legalization.
2. Fund and implement more substance abuse treatment facilities and safe injection sites that are available 24-hours-a-day. There should not be a single person who cannot get the appropriate treatment whenever they are ready for it.
3. County officials should enact legislation that would restrict narcotic prescriptions within Monroe County while still appropriately dealing with patients’ pain.
4. School boards across the county should, with the help of trained addiction professionals, move away from the discredited "DARE" program and implement new, better drug prevention programs based on the most current fact-based research and best practices in the field taking care to integrate student-centered learning practices in any new program.
5. Local elected leaders should lobby state and federal officials for a single payer health care system that includes addiction prevention and treatment.
6. Incarceration is not an appropriate response to the drug overdose pandemic in Monroe County. Locally, we should decriminalize while our elected officials and constituents lobby state and federal officials for complete legalization of drugs.
6a. Decriminalization should involve not only the issuing of a ticket for use, but mandatory drug counseling and/or treatment.
6b. Economic alternatives need to be developed for those who have relied on the illegal sale of drugs in order to survive. This includes businesses centered on formerly illegal activities (e.g. dispensaries, hemp-based products, etc.), particularly for people of color whose communities have been devastated by the “war on drugs”.
Approved January 11, 2018.