Like many states, New Mexico is one in a fiscal crisis. Now is the time to start saving millions of tax dollars by embracing treatment instead of incarceration. On the opening day of the New Mexico legislative session earlier this month, the Drug Policy Alliance began a fight to cut state spending with more compassionate, more effective drug policies.

DPA New Mexico’s ambitious legislative agenda includes proposals addressing treatment for heroin users and for pregnant women, racial profiling, and measures to help people with convictions regain the right to vote and to help them get jobs. We will also convene a statewide taskforce in New Mexico to examine the costs of the state’s current drug policies and create recommendations for change.

DPA is also engaged in protecting the health and safety of communities in New Jersey, a state in which the criminal justice system is seriously out of balance. An emphasis on costly, ineffective mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses is tearing apart families and communities across New Jersey.

DPA soon hopes to pass a bill through the State Senate restoring judicial discretion, allowing New Jersey judges to decide the appropriate sentence for some nonviolent drug offenses on a case-by-case basis. The companion bill in the Assembly has already passed and Governor Corzine has said he will sign the bill if it gets to his desk.

Other efforts in New Jersey include fighting the spread of blood-borne diseases, as the state is still without a comprehensive HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C prevention strategy. Some cities have established syringe access programs, but many have not, leaving many people at risk. DPA New Jersey is advancing a bill that would permit the non-prescription sale of limited numbers of syringes in pharmacies across the state.