On Overdose Awareness Day, we remember the lives lost to overdose, hold close the families and communities who carry that grief, and recommit ourselves to breaking the silence, stigma, and shame surrounding substance use.
For us, that conversation must include people who are incarcerated.
Over the last several years, we have watched headline after headline report overdoses and lives lost inside juvenile facilities, county jails, and state prisons. We have seen young people hospitalized after overdoses inside Los Angeles County juvenile facilities, and we have seen families lose loved ones to overdose while they were in the custody of systems responsible for their care.
These are not isolated incidents. They raise a much larger question about what we call safety inside institutions where nearly every aspect of a person’s life and environment is controlled.
Substance use and overdose do not disappear behind locked doors. And incarceration does not make people immune to the grief, trauma, isolation, and disconnection they may already be carrying. In many cases, people are navigating some of the most difficult and vulnerable moments of their lives while separated from the people and communities they love.
We do not have to condone substance use to refuse to shame the person who is struggling.
Stigma will not prevent an overdose. Shame will not help someone heal. And more punishment cannot replace the care, connection, treatment, and community people need.
Overdose prevention must include people behind the walls. It must mean access to treatment, mental health support, harm reduction, meaningful human connection, and accountability for the conditions people are being held in.
Our people deserve care.
Our people deserve connection.
Our people deserve to come home alive.
This Overdose Awareness Day, we remember those we have lost, stand with those still struggling, and continue demanding safety, dignity, and care- something incarceration has too often failed to provide.