The following action comes from Black Action Coalition (@blackactioncoalition on Instagram):
“For the 2nd time in 2 months, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison and Seattle City Councilmembers Alex Pedersen and Sara Nelson are proposing to adopt the state legislature’s new law criminalizing simple drug possession and public drug use. This ‘new’ bill is identical to the one that failed less than 75 days ago. Except for a brief time when Seattle criminalized marijuana possession, the city of Seattle has never prosecuted drug possession or public use. Rather than effectively address the overdose crisis, this new city bill would increase prosecutions for drug possession, increase the jail population, increase overdoses and overdose deaths, and greatly worsen racial disparities in all of the above.
“We have over fifty years of evidence that arrest and incarceration are ineffective and harmful when it comes to addressing drug use. Tell Seattle City Council to vote NO on returning us to a failed war on drugs!”
Email and/or call city council (Scroll down for scripts)
Emails: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Sample script/email body:
“My name is ______ I am a constituent of Seattle council district ______. I’m writing to ask you to again reject the proposed legislation that would expand the City’s criminal code to prosecute drug possession and public drug use.
We have decades of evidence that incarceration does not prevent overdoses nor give people the help they need. City adoption of this law would increase overdoses, deaths, and racial disparities in arrests, jail time, and overdoses. This proposed bill will bring us back to regressive and racist war-on-drugs policies instead of moving toward evidence-based, effective and more compassionate approaches.
Do not take us back 50 years to a failed war on drugs.”
More background links, resources, and councilmember phone numbers can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/drug-war-redux
