Drugs

PROPOSED / DRAFT — DRUG POLICY, ADDICTION & TRAFFICKING

POSITION

MPA rejects the false choice between criminalizing everything and legalizing everything. Drug policy should distinguish addiction, personal conduct, public danger, and predatory criminal activity.

WHY THIS MATTERS

A policy that treats every case alike wastes enforcement resources, fails people whose criminal conduct is driven by addiction, and can leave major traffickers and violent organizations insufficiently targeted.

ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES

Priority enforcement should target:

• Major trafficking and organized criminal networks

• Distribution to minors

• Knowingly adulterated or deceptively represented dangerous substances

• Violence, coercion, and weapons used in trafficking

• Impaired driving and other conduct creating a direct danger to others

• Money laundering and criminal enterprises built around illegal distribution

Investigations should focus on provable conduct, individual responsibility, financial evidence, supply networks, and organizers rather than relying only on low-level arrest counts.

ADDICTION, TREATMENT & DIVERSION

Appropriate addiction-driven cases should have greater access to evidence-based treatment, mental-health care, supervised diversion, and recovery support. Participation requirements should be clear, proportionate, clinically appropriate, and subject to judicial review.

Treatment programs receiving public money should report retention, completion, overdose, re-arrest, employment, housing stability, and other meaningful outcomes while protecting medical privacy. Programs should not be paid merely for enrollment without measuring results.

PROPORTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Sentencing should distinguish personal possession and addiction-driven conduct from trafficking, predatory distribution, violence, and deliberate distribution of a materially misrepresented substance.

Low-level, nonviolent offenders who successfully complete treatment, restitution, supervision, or another lawful sentence should have a realistic opportunity for record sealing or expungement where public safety permits. Serious trafficking and violent conduct should remain subject to serious consequences.

OVERDOSE PREVENTION & PUBLIC SAFETY

Emergency medical care should not be delayed by fear of punishment for seeking help during an overdose. Prevention efforts should prioritize accurate risk information, rapid emergency response, access to proven overdose-reversal measures, and enforcement against deliberate adulteration and deceptive distribution.

SAFEGUARDS

Treatment must not become indefinite confinement without due process. Diversion should not excuse violence, coercion, trafficking, or conduct that presents an ongoing serious danger. Medical decisions should remain between qualified professionals and patients within the law.

WHAT WE WILL MEASURE

Public reporting should track fatal and nonfatal overdoses, treatment access and completion, re-arrest, trafficking-network disruption, distribution to minors, impaired-driving incidents, program cost, and long-term recovery outcomes.

Related policies: Healthcare; Public Health & Emergency Powers; Criminal Justice, Prison, Jail & Detention Reform; Law Enforcement.

Status: Proposed / Draft — not yet formally adopted.

Originally published: August 15, 2026.

Last updated: September 25, 2026.

Version: Draft 0.3.