Community leaders discuss drug policy at meeting

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A rise in nonfatal drug overdoses has been reported in Lexington this summer. Wednesday's overdose alert is a timely topic as the Kentucky Public Health is Public Safety tour stopped in Lexington on Wednesday.

John Bowman, national campaign coordinator for dream.org, said his goal is to close prison doors and open doors of opportunity.

“Life gets better,” Bowman said. “You can do amazing things even if you have a bad past. It doesn't matter what our past is, we can always create a better future.”

Bowman suffered from substance abuse for 24 years and was in and out of prison multiple times. He has now been in recovery for six years and is using his experiences to help others in Kentucky.

“It's the same everywhere,” Bowman said of the drug problems. “It's no different from community to community. The people may be a little different, but the problems are the same.”

The Public Health is Public Safety Tour brings together community leaders with diverse perspectives and shows how they are working for the same changes.

“We're bringing together a lot of unlikely allies,” Bowman said. “It's really cool and nice to see people who wouldn't normally come together end up finding the same solution to a problem.”

“When you hear both a recovering patient and a police officer come to the realization that we need more resources or more treatment spaces or more diversion measures, and you hear that in a very natural way, it really shines in your heart.”

Amanda Hall, senior director of national campaigns at dream.org, has also noticed the impact of bringing these perspectives together.

“I’ve really seen the power of these groups bridging that divide and coming together to talk about the problems they see, but also how we can work together to find solutions,” Hall said.

During a panel discussion at the beginning of the meeting, discussions went something like this:

“Ultimately, it’s really about being a supportive employer,” says Ryan Bowman, program manager of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Recovery Program.

“Harm reduction means meeting people where they are,” says Stephanie Johnson, statewide coordinator for VOCAL Kentucky.

“In 2017, 78,000 Americans overdosed in the United States, and my daughter was one of them,” said Andrew Hager, founder of Blameless Children.

A Lexington firefighter and paramedic said, “Paramedics, police officers and people in my profession are often frustrated, and we are often frustrated not with the person, but with the lack of a solution.”

The Public Health Public Safety Tour began here in Kentucky last year, but was so successful that Dream.org decided to expand the campaign nationwide.

“We believe that overdose deaths affect everyone,” Hall said. “Because it affects everyone, we want everyone to try to fight for change.”

Lexington was planned as the last stop, but now a final event has been added to the tour on September 25th in Louisville.

“We don’t need to create more problems, we need to really come together and find solutions, and that’s exactly what these events do,” Bowman said.