CARE FIRST WA (Washington)
as a collective partnership of organizations and government partners focused on achieving outcomes for racial justice, harm reduction, and common-sense government, we have committed ourselves to advancing equitable public health for drug users and communities – in coalition together. Our shared mission is to replace punishment with reality-based and proven public health responses to problematic drug use including robust trauma-informed care. The Care First coalition includes workers and individuals with the varied, direct experiences needed to transform this system: harm related to drug use, criminalization of drug use, the economic insecurity that consigns many people to the informal economy (including low-level drug sales), and work within the system that offers insight into its operations and flaws.