*Introduction* (Choose one or write your own)

My name is [your name] and I live in [your city/zip code].

• I am writing to ask you to please support critical legislation this year that will save the lives of Coloradans who use drugs.

• If we’re going to prevent our friends, family and neighbors from continuing to die needlessly of drug overdose, Colorado must make a break from the past and implement programs that are proven to work. The harm reduction model is the way forward out of our current crisis. This year, instead of criminalizing people, let’s keep them from dying by addressing one of the deadliest problems: people using drugs alone. Let’s implement Overdose Prevention Centers (OPCs). 

• People will use drugs regardless of how harshly they are criminalized for it. Instead of punishing them, which doesn’t work , we can figure out how to keep them alive as the street drug supply becomes increasingly unpredictable and dangerous. Overdose Prevention Centers (OPCs) do one critical thing really well: they stop people from using alone. That simple intervention could save countless Coloradans from dying of overdose. 

• Nearly 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021 in the U.S.. Our country has an overdose mortality rate that is 20 times the worldwide average. If we could arrest and jail our way out of this crisis, surely it would have happened by now? We can’t keep falling back on the same criminal legal solutions that have never worked. We need policy makers who aren’t afraid to get behind a so-called “radical” solution that has only been successful everywhere it has been tried: Overdose Prevention Centers (OPCs).

• The stakes could not be higher — death due to drug overdose in our country is one of the leading causes of death for people under the age of 50. It is one of the key factors driving U.S. life expectancy to its lowest level in 25 years. We urgently need solutions. Fortunately, an easy and practical solution already exists! Overdose Prevention Centers (OPCs)) are not a radical idea — they have been implemented successfully around the world. Colorado communities that want to implement these life-saving centers should have the right to do so.

*Explain Overdose Prevention Centers* (Choose one or write your own)

• OPCs are legally-sanctioned spaces that allow people who already use drugs to do so safely, under the supervision of trained staff, with access to sterile equipment as well as tools to check their supply to determine what’s in their (self-supplied) drugs.
  

• No one has ever died of an overdose while utilizing an OPC. Despite fears that OPCs are somehow “enabling” or encourage more drug use, studies show that people are helped into treatment and medical care at much higher rates. Despite fears that they will negatively impact surrounding neighborhoods, OPCs have improved neighborhoods by reducing overdose deaths, reducing public drug use, reducing syringe / paraphernalia litter, and saving cities money on disease prevention and emergency medical services.
  

• OPCs are a proven public health intervention to prevent overdose deaths, and even the American Medical Association recommends that communities implement these sites to reduce harms associated with drug use, connect more people to services including treatment, and prevent more people from dying needlessly of overdose.

*Make an Ask* (Choose one or write your own)

• OPCs are a practical, safe, evidence-based approach to prevent deaths from overdose. The communities in Colorado who want these centers should be allowed to follow the science and institute them should they choose. I hope you will support OPCs and allow local control over what works to save lives. 

• Please support OPCs. It is critical that we allow Colorado communities the choice to add this evidence-based tool to their toolkit for combating the overdose crisis. 

• Every overdose death in Colorado — an average of 5 deaths per day and rising — is a policy choice.  We need to stop making the same bad choices, and start doing what’s been proven to keep people alive. I hope you will champion OPCs. in the Colorado legislature this year.

*Be sure to add a note of thanks*

• Thank you!

• I appreciate your kind consideration. 

• Thanks for your attention.

  Sincerely,

  [YOUR NAME]