After two years of consultation with issue experts and Ithaca community members, in February, Mayor Svante Myrick and the Municipal Drug Policy Committee released a new, comprehensive plan aimed to reform the city’s drug policy in response to the city’s increased rate of drug abuse.
One of the plan’s major proposals calls for building better awareness of how to prevent problematic use, helping those who have drug problems, reducing risks from illicit substance use, and providing overdose response trainings. The plan also calls for the creation of an Office of Drug Policy, which would work to reduce morbidity, mortality, cost, and inequities associated with illicit drugs. In addition, the plan suggests the expansion and improvement of more affordable recovery-oriented treatment services in Ithaca, such as supervised detox centers, syringe exchange programs, and clinics that integrate housing, nutrition, and mental health care services with substance use services. Further, the plan calls for alternatives to incarceration to connect drug users and people returning from prison with jobs programs and harm reduction services.
By taking a public health and safety approach to drug policy, the Ithaca Plan offers an exemplary alternative to the failed tactics of the drug war. It is a holistic strategy that engages the various sectors of local government, the medical community, and law enforcement officials in providing services to people at different points on the substance use continuum—ranging from prevention to treatment and harm reduction—instead of treating the drug epidemic as a criminal issue.
Among the plan’s recommendations is a controversial proposal for the country’s first supervised heroin injection site, which received both cautious support and criticism. Whether this particular proposal will be approved by the state and federal governments remains an unanswered question. The Ithaca community will further need to evaluate whether it needs this program while also attempting to help people who are still struggling to afford childcare, food, and housing. But as a culmination of community involvement and careful, rational study of Ithaca’s unique circumstances and needs, the Ithaca Plan successfully addresses the nuances of its own realities and needs that nation-wide policies are often insufficient in addressing.
The plan’s focus on reducing the stigma associated with seeking help for drug use and mental health issues is its most distinctive guiding principle that has a potential for catalyzing broad, positive change—including in our own schools. Consultation findings from the process of drafting the plan identify boredom and isolation from community as primary motivators for youth drug use. The plan also recognized the importance of discouraging young people from picking up harmful habits early on and helping open more opportunities for youth to make positive social connections with their peers, mentors, and career and education opportunities.
While the plan establishes that prevention of drug use among young people must be a central goal in drug policy, it does not ignore the need for reforming zero-tolerance programs and health classes that merely discourage drug use from elementary school through middle and high school. The current elementary- and middle-school health curricula are inadequate in teaching harm-reduction and socially-responsible judgement outside of their message of prevention and abstinence. While the high school health class sufficiently covers these areas, most students are introduced to these ideas in their junior or senior years, at which point it may be too late for some.
The D.A.R.E. program, led by an law enforcement officer from the Ithaca Police Department, has been taught in Ithaca classrooms to discourage substance use among elementary school students. D.A.R.E. and other abstinence-based programs have been subjected to increasing scrutiny over the years. While their overall effectiveness is still much debated, studies by universities departments of education, and public health institutions have shown that they do little or nothing to combat harmful substance use. This school year, D.A.R.E. has been temporarily discontinued in ICSD after the officer who had taught it was promoted to another job. Should ICSD decide to resume the program, it must be reformed to take a non-judgmental approach that understands that students ultimately make their own choices about drugs and aims to help students in all points on the substance use continuum.
Just like at the high school, health classes in elementary and middle schools should be concentrated on giving complete information on drugs including specifics such as what drugs are and their effects, keeping personal safety in mind, public policy and the legal implications of use, how to identify problem users, and the significance of personal development and social responsibility. Building rational decision-making skills and reducing the dangers of drug uses—whether it is for alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana—should be legitimate goals for those who are unwilling to accept abstinence as a solution.
The plan also rightfully calls for reform in ICSD to incorporate restorative justice systems and curb rise of suspensions, expulsions, dropout rates. Schools must offer a compassionate alternative to suspension and expulsion and provide approachable resources where students could seek help for their drug problem while remaining anonymous.
The conversations around shifting our attitudes and policies regarding drug use happening in the city must also be had in our school district. It is the community’s attitudes that are most influential to the ways students express their own emotional problems and psychological distress and whether they disclose these symptoms and seek care. Fostering a more kind and embracing environment throughout the school is crucial, and people, especially teenagers, must be made comfortable to acknowledge that they suffer from an addiction and to seek help. To better reflect the progressive policies that center on evidence instead of propaganda, and on compassion instead of stigma, the district must adjust its own policies and curricula on mental health and drug use.