3 California Drug Campaigns and a Treatment Center to Help

Drug abuse is a problem nationwide. And California, in particular, has experienced its share of those struggling with addiction to substances. That’s why treatment centers like Laguna Treatment Hospital and organizations like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) offer hope and solutions where it may feel like there isn’t any.

Laguna Treatment Hospital, an American Addiction Centers’ treatment facility, is a nationwide leader in addiction treatment and has been a valuable resource in California for those battling alcohol and substance use disorders.

The mission of the Drug Policy Alliance is to “advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug use and drug prohibition, and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies.”

The three campaigns that the DPA is pushing for are marijuana reform, harm reduction in how it relates to drug use, and incarceration obstacles within the criminal justice system.

Regarding marijuana reform, the DPA helped to pass Proposition 64 in California, which legalized adult use of marijuana, as well as seeks to undo all of the harm marijuana prohibition has caused. What does this mean? An individual with a criminal conviction on their record may be eligible to be resentenced or to have their record modified.

The DPA is also working towards increasing access to treatment, access to sterile syringes, and establishing supervised injection facilities. Their ambition to set up these injection facilities and provide sterile syringes may appear that they are supporting and enabling those addicted to drugs to continue their addiction. However, the purpose of this is to decrease societal and health problems in relation to injection drug use.

Benefits of supervised injection facilities:

• Prevents overdose deaths.
• Reduces spread of hepatitis C and HIV.
• Increases access to treatment/medical care.
• Reduces syringe litter and public drug use.

The criminal justice system, although may have been created with good intentions, inadvertently and severely penalizes for offenses that are minor. This is where the DPA steps in. They advocate for options outside of incarceration, reversing the result of past substance-related criminalization, and the protection of immigrants from being deported for drug offenses.

Since 2008, approximately 40,000 people have been deported for drug law violations each year, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

California law has a “deferred entry of judgement for minor nonviolent drug offenses,” which happens to mostly be offenses that involve the use or the possession of drugs. This means that a defendant waives their right to a speedy trial, pleads guilty, and is required to complete a drug treatment program. The case gets dismissed if the program is completed, but there’s no protection against federal consequences for the individual. For example, the consequence of a non-citizen getting deported. The DPA works with many immigration rights advocates to help with reforming these laws.

Between an advocacy group like the DPA and Laguna Treatment Hospital, drug abuse in California is being tackled from different angles. And Laguna provides treatments for a variety of substance addictions.

Below is a list of some of those substances:

• Ambien.
• Alcohol
• Fentanyl.
• Prescription drugs.
• Meth.
• Cocaine.
• Inhalants.
• And many others.

Additionally, Laguna offers medical detox, residential services, inpatient rehabilitation,  aftercare planning, and even virtual support meetings. Laguna Treatment Hospital is committed to helping individuals battling with alcohol and/or substance abuse to reach long-term sobriety. When we all work together, we can win the battle against drug abuse.