Joy Fishman: Let’s tackle drug abuse with ‘harm reduction’ strategies

Mel Sembler and I have something in common. We both had children who abused drugs. The similarities end there.

Mel’s children are all alive, thank goodness. My son, Jonathan, died of a heroin overdose in 2006, after being dumped outside of an ER in Hialeah by the dealers who sold him his final shot.

Mr. Sembler has received a lot of attention for his personally inspired efforts to fight drug use in all forms, no matter the broader consequences. He and his wife, Betty, have established two organizations, Drug-Free America Foundation (DFAF) and Save Our Society from Drugs (SOSD), that reflexively oppose anything that looks like meaningful drug policy reform and have for decades.

Prior to being simply advocates, the Semblers were participants in the drug rehab business, running the chain of youth rehab facilities Straight Inc., which was shuttered after accusations of, in the words of a California state investigation, “unusual punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation, ridicule, coercion, threats [and] mental abuse.”

Sembler is now back in the headlines for pledging to raise $10 million to defeat Florida’s proposed medical marijuana amendment on the November ballot. He orchestrated the previous effort to defeat the 2014 iteration of the same, successfully denying the majority will of Floridians by raising over $7 million to keep the amendment just under the 60 percent threshold for passage.

To be clear, I am a supporter of medical marijuana. I have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Drug Policy Alliance and its advocacy arm, Drug Policy Action, which is a substantial backer of the Florida campaign, among other campaigns. But medical marijuana is not the focus of my advocacy efforts. My cause, inspired by my son’s struggle and ultimate death, is a program called Harm Reduction.

Harm Reduction is a broad category of public safety and health policy reforms that includes syringe exchange programs (like Florida’s recently passed bill allowing such a pilot program in Miami-Dade County), increased access to Naloxone, a miracle drug that can harmlessly and cheaply reverse an opiate overdose as it is happening, and drug maintenance programs, such as methadone.

I want to remind people that Sembler’s crusade against drugs is not limited to denying sick Floridians access to marijuana. Sembler and his affiliated organizations have a long history of opposing Harm Reduction programs in virtually all their forms, proactively fighting policies that have been proven time and again to save the lives of people like my late son.

The International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy, an offshoot of DFAF and SOSD, sent a letter to the United Nations’ UNGASS summit on drug policy a few weeks ago, attacking the very notion of Harm Reduction. The letter, for which SOSD Executive Director Calvina Fay was both a signatory and the primary contact on its press release, stated plainly, “We oppose so-called ‘harm reduction’ strategies.”

It went on to state the signatories’ specific opposition to syringe exchange programs. Such programs have been proven to save the lives of drug users, their loved ones and public safety officials who might be exposed to HIV and hepatitis C through sexual contact or accidental needle pricks.

The programs do so without increasing drug use rates. In fact, studies have shown that syringe exchange programs are often drug users’ first steps toward seeking treatment.

David Evans, a “special adviser” to DFAF, stating the Sembler group’s opposition to syringe access, recently advocated for the antiquated notion that criminalization of drug users to “force them to go into treatment [which] has proven to be very productive.” Except virtually every major voice in public policy disagrees with the notion that a criminal justice strategy, rather than a health care approach, is most effective in tackling abuse and addiction.

I sympathize with Mel and Betty Sembler over what their family has gone through because of drug abuse. I know as well as anyone, far too well, the grief that accompanies addiction. But their approach is not only wrong but irresponsibly dangerous. When the Semblers are successful in their advocacy efforts, people die as a result. Period.

My shared experience with Mel and Betty, and millions of others who have seen addiction firsthand, makes it so I will never deign to deny someone their personal reaction to the pain they have suffered. But that does not mean they are not dead wrong.

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Joy Fishman is a philanthropist and advocate for Harm Reduction. Her late husband, Jack Fishman, invented the drug, Naloxone*. Joy splits her time between Bal Harbour, Fla. and New York, NY.

*Mrs. Fishman has no financial interest in the sales of Naloxone.