H.B. 5191, An Act Concerning Emergency Intervention By a Police Officer When a Person Suffers a Narcotics Overdose

Police and other criminal legal system actors are simply not the appropriate people to handle the public health needs of substance use disorders; they are not public health actors whose sole job is to connect people with the health services they need. To the countrary, when police interact with people with active addiction, the results can be catastrophic. Over a quarter of people killed by police are contemporaneous drug users, and people with alcohol dependence account for almost 23 percent of people killed by police. Relying on police as first responders to drug overdoses and other addiction crises will not improve our public health outlook for opioid addiction, but rather will prop up the system of mass incarceration. It is time to think differently. We encourage this Committee to make policy that supports a longer-term move away from dispatching police to drug use calls in favor of a public health-based approach. Accordingly, we oppose House Bill 5191, and urge this Committee to do the same.