We are a small group of activists under the non-profit Agape, Inc. umbrella working to bring dignity to people using opiates, both currently and in recovery. 

Our goal is to encourage people in our community to examine their own assumptions and consider a new approach that compassionately accepts people as they are. 

We support trauma-informed, empathetic, and holistic approaches of abstinence and harm reduction that balance physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. 

We believe that people die from shame, not from the drug.

We believe that everyone, including people using opiates, is doing the best that they can with the resources they presently have.

We are committed to bringing compassion and education to the public and to health professionals to gain a broader perspective of addiction that includes science and evidence-based strategies for change at a community and individual level and acceptance of human suffering as a source of addiction.

We are dedicated to change in our own community. Replacing stigma with compassion and training leaders to incorporate the philosophy of resiliency and harm reduction into our health care and social service organizations.

We are committed to look at our conversations.

We work towards bringing naloxone and overdose prevention sites to prevent death and allow for safe use, access to resources, and the building of trusting, empathetic relationships.

Our current social, legal, and medical responses to people using opiates are not working. Neighbors and friends are dying.

Mortality rates from drug poisonings are often under-reported, yet the numbers are staggering. In the United States, it is estimated that more than 200,000 deaths were attributed to opiate overdoses since 2015 alone. According to MaineHealth, drug overdose is now responsible for the most years of life lost prematurely among men under age 70 in Maine.

Our escalating losses call for radical change in our thinking, beliefs, and strategies.