Devin Reaves is many things. Social justice advocate, Ivy League graduate, a person in long-term recovery since 2007. Reaves sits on the Mayor’s Opioid Task Force, teaming with other healthcare professionals to offer measurable improvements in addiction treatment. The only problem? The task force is only meeting for three months, in contrast to standing opioid task forces in cities like New York that are able to conduct long-term research in their respective areas. Mayor Kenny’s task force has to be focused and no-frills to be effective, because the consequences are deadly.

“Every overdose death is preventable,” Reaves said, citing that statistically speaking, over 100 people die daily from overdoses in the United States. He also considers social justice and addiction solutions to be intrinsically linked. Reaves spoke passionately about the criminalization of Black and Brown bodies and the over policing of minority communities that came with the crack epidemic of the 1980s, as well as the disproportionate sentencing laws between crack and powdered cocaine leading to mass radicalized incarceration. “Now you see news media reporting on the ‘new’ face of the opioid epidemic,” Reaves said, “That means that the old face, the Black face, didn’t matter.”

Reaves cited the continuing segregation of the American public school system and years of choked resources in redlined neighborhoods, which are disproportionately Black, as evidence of why social justice should be an element to every solution offered to combat addiction. The failure of early intervention programs, such as D.A.R.E are also to blame for the allocation of resources, Reaves said. “We don’t teach how to do drugs safely,” he stressed. “Every overdose death is preventable.” Out of context that statement is shocking, but the measurable failure of police-licensed prevention programs illustrates the need for groundbreaking reform, the need for a complete paradigm shift on how addiction is perceived.