Community voice can change what gets funded, protected, and prioritized.
Recovery All Ways advocates for policies, funding, and public decisions that reduce harm, protect dignity, and support people impacted by substance use, homelessness, mental health challenges, and overdose loss.
Advocacy rooted in care
Advocacy is one way we practice community care. It helps make sure decisions are shaped by the people closest to the crisis, including people with lived and living experience, families who have lost loved ones, frontline workers, volunteers, neighbors, and organizations doing direct work on the ground.
We believe public systems should invest in what saves lives: harm reduction, naloxone access, drug checking, syringe services, wound care, housing, mental health support, peer support, medications for opioid use disorder, and no-barrier community-based care.
Current action items
These are active ways community members can speak up, contact decision-makers, and help keep pressure on systems to use public resources in ways that reduce harm, protect dignity, and save lives.
Page status
Last updated: July 6, 2026. The HHS harm reduction comment window closed on July 5 and has been moved to the Past Actions section. The methadone access action remains active after the June 25 federal reintroduction of MOTAA 2.0. New York Assembly action is still needed on opioid settlement interest and outpatient substance use treatment cost-sharing.
Expand Methadone Access
The Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act 2.0 was reintroduced on June 25, 2026. The bill would expand access to methadone for opioid use disorder by allowing qualified providers to prescribe it and pharmacies to dispense it.
Protect Settlement Interest and Reduce Treatment Cost Barriers
The New York State Senate passed two addiction-related bills, but Assembly action is still needed. One protects interest earned on opioid settlement funds. The other helps reduce cost barriers for outpatient substance use treatment.
Our advocacy priorities
RAW’s advocacy is grounded in dignity, harm reduction, and real-world support for people who are too often pushed out of traditional systems of care.
Harm reduction saves lives
We support practical, evidence-based tools that reduce overdose risk, prevent infection, and keep people connected to care without shame or judgment.
Funding should reach the ground
Public dollars meant for overdose response should reach the people and organizations doing direct, community-based work.
People closest to the crisis should be heard
People who use drugs, people in recovery, families, unhoused neighbors, volunteers, and frontline workers should help shape the decisions that affect them.
Care should be no-barrier
People should not have to be sober, housed, insured, perfect, or ready for treatment to receive care, safety, support, and dignity.
Treatment access should be practical
People deserve access to medications for opioid use disorder, including methadone and buprenorphine, without unnecessary barriers, stigma, or impossible hoops.
Overdose prevention is community safety
We support policies that prevent fatal overdose, reduce public harm, build trust, and connect people to care, housing, treatment, recovery support, and community.
Overdose prevention centers save lives
RAW supports evidence-based overdose prevention, safer use spaces, and community-centered policy changes that help prevent fatal overdose and keep people connected to care.
Cost should not block treatment
People seeking outpatient substance use treatment should not be pushed away by repeated costs, confusing insurance barriers, or bills they cannot afford.
Ways to get involved
You do not need to be an expert to advocate. Your voice matters because this crisis impacts real people, real families, and real neighborhoods.
- Contact lawmakers when action items are posted.
- Send letters or public comments when public input is needed.
- Share advocacy pages with friends, family, neighbors, and community partners.
- Talk with local decision-makers about harm reduction, overdose prevention, and community care.
- Support policies that fund no-barrier services and direct outreach.
- Support low-barrier access to medications for opioid use disorder.
- Support policies that reduce treatment costs and insurance barriers.
- Listen to and center people with lived and living experience.
Past actions and advocacy record
Some advocacy windows are time-limited. We keep a record of past actions here so our community can see what RAW has spoken up for, what mattered at the time, and how these issues connect to ongoing harm reduction work.
Speak Up for Harm Reduction
RAW created a public comment guide and template for the HHS request for input on federal addiction, mental health, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction policy. The comment window closed on July 5, 2026.
Change starts with people speaking up together.
Every call, every letter, every public comment, every conversation, and every shared action helps remind decision-makers that overdose prevention, harm reduction, treatment access, housing, and care are not abstract policy issues. They are life and death issues for people we love.