Meet Cara, A Grieving Mom Who Opposes Prop 36

Last week, we introduced you to Aimee, an Orange County parent who lost her son Ben to an overdose. She voiced her opposition to Proposition 36, understanding that passing it will do more harm than good and make it harder for people to access the help they need.

While expending hundreds of millions of dollars in court and prison costs, Prop 36 will not measurably reduce crime or poverty. No studies on criminal justice or homelessness support the idea that harsher punishment — or the threat of harsher punishment — prevents crime or gets people off the street.

In the meantime, schools, health care, drug treatment and other essential services will suffer from the budget cuts made to fund the increased cost of incarceration.

Today, we want to you to meet Cara. Cara is a mother from Oakland, a grieving mom who lost her son to a drug overdose. Like Aimee, Cara is a member of Broken No More, a group of family members who suffered the loss of a loved one to substance use disorder, most often overdose. They are strong advocates for better treatment and investments in harm reduction, and we are very grateful for their leadership.

Cara used her platform to voice her opposition to Prop 36.

You see, fentanyl might be on the death certificate, but it was really a failure of the system that killed him and destroyed our family. No one wants to get that call. So when I see Prop 36, I want to say NO; you cannot just incarcerate people to treat substance abuse disorder.

Watch Cara's plea to California voters to vote No on Proposition 36 -->> (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok).

Communities are facing real problems, including problems related to substance use, retail theft, housing, and economic hardship. Prop 36 will cost the state billions in new prison and jail spending – the biggest prison spending increase in California history. It will replicate the "tough on crime" era that brought mass incarceration, overcrowding, and a federal intervention ordering California to reduce the prison population, while NEVER demonstrating the policies that actually prevent crime. 

Instead, Prop 36 will cut hundreds of millions of dollars from mental health and substance abuse treatment programs, trauma recovery services for survivors of crime, and programs for K-12 public school students.

Now is not the time to revisit the failed past solution of mass incarceration.