Columbus, OH – Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, issued the following statement is support of Ohio Senate Bill 3, which would reform Ohio’s drug sentencing laws to better serve justice and treat those suffering from addiction by applying sensible best practices.

“Ohio has the fifth highest drug overdose death rate in the country. For too many years, Ohio has tried using felonies and incarceration to solve this vexing problem—to no avail.

“As then-Attorney General Mike DeWine argued, ‘We are not going to arrest our way out of this problem. We have to deal with it holistically, which is [to] do a better job in regard to treatment and getting people into treatment and keeping them in treatment.’ He was right.

“Doing a better job of treatment requires Ohio to integrate evidence-based approaches, which is exactly what Senate Bill 3 does. Conservatives across Ohio support Senate Bill 3 because it saves lives as well as taxpayer money, and provides a humane option to those battling addiction. The Buckeye Institute as well as conservatives across the state and country strongly urge Governor DeWine to join the cause of fiscal responsibility and to support this important bill and what it does to redeem the 6,238 families who have lost loved ones to overdose deaths since 2019 alone.”

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