Recovery Can't Wait

What We're Up Against

Imagine a state where every human life was always worth saving.

Imagine babies getting the support they need and no adult life thrown away.

Imagine community-based treatment being minutes away, not months. Imagine Recovery Community Centers that know that recovery is not one thing, that no two people have the same path. Imagine harm reduction– including evidence-based syringe exchanges–in every county. Imagine naloxone in every public building.

One Governor can’t solve the drug crisis alone. We need a groundswell of first responders, faith leaders, social workers, foster parents, everyday citizens, and most of all, people in recovery from substance use disorder and mental illness.

Our Plan

  • Establish Recovery Centers regionally across the state–so no one ever has to wait months for treatment again. 
  • Establish a Recovery Jobs Program that combines work and substance abuse recovery in a variety of industries. 

 

Pursue all lawsuits, taxes, fees and other efforts to force the drug companies who have profited from our pain.

  • Provide mini-grants to those doing frontline recovery work.
  • Establish a Taxpayer Council on Recovery
    • Led by people with substance use disorder, their families, community leaders, first responders, and medical professionals – to drive the policy changes.
  • Choose treatment over prison.
    • We support full cannabis legalization (see our Legalize Cannabis plan), decriminalization, and expungement. For other narcotics, we will push toward downgrading possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors that would not carry jail time.
  • Pass “Ban the Box” legislation, so that sufferers of substance use disorder are not continuously punished (i.e. blocked from: housing, jobs, food stamps) even after they have served their time.
  • Drug test criminal informants-right now, people with substance use disorder are being paid by police to purchase drugs… without ever being tested or referred to treatment.

 

  • Update the Good Samaritan Act to offer further immunity to people who need Naloxone in an emergency (not just people who call it in).
  • Allow first responders to do Naloxone dispensation.
  • Make Naloxone available in all public buildings, prisons, treatment centers, etc., and distribute it to all first responders.

 

No one politician or slate of candidates can win this plan alone. We need you.

If you have an idea for how to make this plan stronger, or if you would like to lend a hand to win it, contact our co-chair Stephen Smith at stephen@wvcantwait.com.

Fund the Movement

This movement runs on people power, without a dime of corporate cash. Make your donation today. Or better yet, join the ranks of our monthly donors by selecting the box during check out! 

Join the Movement

It will take 1,000 leaders not 1 to win a West Virginia that works for all of us. That means we need you!