A couple of weeks ago I was on an introductory call with the leader of a faith-based organization that works on other justice issues. As we talked he made the comment that stigmatizing drugs by using the criminal justice system was valuable because it shows people drug use is not acceptable. From his perspective, the criminal label is a helpful prevention tool.

I’ve heard many people express the same worry over moving away from a criminal justice response to drugs: “What kind of message are we sending? Won’t people think we’re encouraging drug use?”

But there’s a flip side to stigma. It makes it really, really hard to reach out for help. It’s impossible to label someone a criminal on the front end and not have fallout on the back end.

The dissonance happening right now is that we’re trying to simultaneously shame people away from drug use by using stigma, but then break down stigma if they develop an addiction. This isn’t how human nature works. We don’t get to hand out shame and then take it back whenever we want to.

If we want more people struggling with addiction to take the path of recovery, we can’t continue to wield shame and stigma. That doesn’t mean we give up on helping people make healthy choices. Instead, what if we opted for honest and open education so people could make well-informed decisions about substance use and access appropriate help if they need it?