The never-ending battle against the drug epidemic, non-profit helps educate community on resources

LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC 36 NEWS NOW) — From the current opioid crisis, to overdose deaths to addiction.

It continues to be the fight of a lifetime, the war against drugs.

“Every time we make a stiffer penalty for one drug, something worse comes down the pipeline,” says John Bowman, the KY Senior Campaign Manager of Dream.org

For the non-profit, dream.org,  educating about the imbalance between substance abuse and incarceration is one of their driving factors.

“Our punitive drug laws are really a strain on our system, and they’re also a driver of mass incarceration,” added Bowman.

For Bowman, his fight to educate goes a little deeper, having battled substance abuse disorder for over two decades.

“When I was in my using days, I didn’t care what the penalties were,” said Bowman.

His mission now is to help others with education and keeping communities safe.

Meantime those at the Georgetown Police Department have implemented programs to submerse themselves in the community in an attempt to break stigmas.

“What our Angel Program is, is that if somebody from maybe our, food shelter, we work closely with them, they call and say we’ve got somebody that really wants, some type of, treatment. So we’ll go to there, wherever they are, we’ll meet them where they’re at. We’ll sit down with them, we’ll figure out what type of services they need,” says Officer Jason Christopher, with Community and Recovery and Support Team with the Georgetown Police Department.

Christopher says it all begins with making everyone feel human.

“It’s a matter of meeting where they are and letting them understand like, hey, I’m here if you need me”  he adds.

His fight to help others, is also a personal one.

“I’ve been a 20-year police officer, my son suffers from it, I’ve fought the battle with him for 12 years. I haven’t saved him yet, but if I can’t save him, I’ll save someone else’s child. But one day he’s going to come,” he said.

Adding that in Georgetown they made Narcan more readily accessible for those who may need it, especially when there are even more harmful drugs.

“It doesn’t pick and choose, it doesn’t care who you are, and now with fentanyl, it’s a completely different, different poison,” said Christopher.

For Bowman and those at the non-profit, its about closing prison doors and opening the doors of opportunity.

If you’d like to learn more about the Angel Program, just one of the programs in Scott County they have to help those battling addiction, click here.

You can access a Narcan kit at the Lexington Fire Department, or at the Lexington-Fayette Coutny Health Department, to name a few.