When Will America Admit It’s Failing People With Substance Use Disorder?
Let’s be honest. We all know someone — or know of someone — who’s struggled with substance use disorder, or addiction. A family member. A friend. A neighbor. Maybe even ourselves.
And yet, somehow, we still treat it like a crime instead of what it really is: a health issue, a human issue, and often, a pain issue.
For decades, America has responded to drug use with fear and punishment. That’s what the “war on drugs” was: a massive, expensive effort to scare people straight and lock them up. But it didn’t work. Not even close.
Instead of helping people who were hurting, we threw them in jail. Instead of offering treatment, we handed out criminal records. And instead of making drugs harder to get, we watched as they got more dangerous.
We’re now living through the deadliest drug crisis in American history. Fentanyl is everywhere.
Substance use disorder? It doesn’t come from bad morals. It comes from trauma. From pain. From untreated mental health struggles. From loneliness. From poverty. From not having anywhere else to turn… and guess what? We do know what helps.
Harm reduction saves lives. Period.
Things like clean syringe programs, access to Narcan, medication like Suboxone or Methadone, and mental health care — these are the tools that give people a chance. A real one. Not just a second chance, but sometimes a first chance at stability, at recovery, at being seen as a whole person.
Time and time again, studies show that countries that treat addiction as a health issue — not a crime — see lower overdose rates, fewer infections, and more people getting better. Meanwhile, we keep doubling down on fear and punishment while overdose deaths rise.
Let’s be clear: Yes, we should go after drug traffickers — hard. The people making and selling counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, knowing they’re deadly, are not the same as someone trying to survive an addiction. Those people should be held fully accountable. They are killing for profit. No one’s arguing that.
But the problem is, our laws often don’t make that distinction. We go after the users — the ones who are struggling, scared, or just trying to avoid withdrawal — with the same intensity as the people pushing pounds of poison. And that’s just not right.
New laws should focus on the big dealers, the major suppliers, the ones at the top of the chain — not the person with a gram in their pocket who’s using to avoid feeling sick.
And while we’re at it, let’s not pretend that mass deportations or blaming immigrants is going to solve this crisis. The drugs are already here. They’re coming through legal points of entry and brought primarily through U.S. citizens, according to border control statistics.
We need to focus on the root of the problem.
Why are so many people using in the first place? Why are so many in pain? Why are mental health services still so hard to access? Why are housing, therapy, and support programs the first to lose funding while prisons expand?
Addiction doesn’t mean someone is broken. It means they’re human. And humans need care. They need connection. They need help — not handcuffs.
The truth is, if we really want to stop this crisis, we have to stop pretending punishment works.
We need to start showing up for people the way we would want someone to show up for us or our loved ones.
Because no one should have to die just because they were hurting in the wrong way, at the wrong time, in the wrong country.
And we’re not going to arrest our way out of this.
