Those of us who missed Mayor Cicilline at Saturday’s Pride festivities should be placated by news of how he spent that day. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, gathered for their 76th Annual Meeting in Miami from June 20-24, unanimously passed a resolution calling for city-coordinated drug overdose prevention efforts.

The Resolution championed several strategies to reduce fatalities from drug overdoses, including:

• Supporting the distribution of naloxone – an opiate antagonist medication effective in reversing the respiratory failure that typically causes death from opioid overdose;
• Urging state governments to adopt “Good Samaritan” immunity policies that shield people who experience or witness an overdose and contact 911 from prosecution;
• Calling on the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund research to evaluate the effectiveness of overdose prevention interventions and develop model programs; and
• Calling on the FDA to take steps to facilitate the testing and approval of nasal and/or over-the-counter formulations of naloxone and to consider recommending prescription naloxone concurrent with strong opioid analgesics.

Santa Fe Mayor David Coss, who sponsored the resolution, declared:

Last year, our nation’s mayors agreed that we must address the problems of substance use and abuse with a public health approach. This year we have continued that work by calling for policies that increase public safety by preventing unnecessary deaths. These policies have saved lives in Santa Fe and will work in other cities.

New Mexico, in fact, has been a trailblazer on this issue. Governor Bill Richardson lent enormous support to the state legislature’s Good Samaritan law when they passed it last Spring. In Rhode Island, however, the Good Samaritan law HB 7887–sponsored by Slater, Handy, Ajello, McNamara, and Sullivan–died in committee, where it was held for further study.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Children, Health, and Human Services Committee (chaired by Cicilline) also heard testimony on key issues such as the cradle-to-prison pipeline, reentry from jail to community, the housing crisis, and after-school programming. And, last year, the USCM declared the War on Drugs “a failure” and called for a “New Bottom Line” in U.S. drug policy which, they argued, should measure efficiency in lives saved rather than persons incarcerated.

In conclusion: way to go, U.S. Mayors, and way to blow, RI General Assembly.

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