PERFECT SUMMER VACATION? –

May 27, 2021 – “I have been aware of the harm done to immigrant communities by drug policy since working on the deportation issue in the Azores since the 1990s,” he said. “Most of the U.S. permanent residents repatriated to the islands were the result of felony convictions for crimes related to substance use disorder. Had these individuals received treatment and not criminal records, they would have been allowed to stay in the U.S. and build back their lives.”  This has also led to secondary problems, including the inability of migrants to seek assistance for fear of deportation, he said.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Moniz has been spending more time in his hometown of Falmouth, Mass. He took this opportunity to start conversations about best practices and innovations for drug treatment and overdose with several community shareholders, including his friend and neighbor Lt. Mike Simoneau of the Falmouth Police Department.

“We had a number of conversations about the issue, his experiences, and my own work on the issue through an initiative with the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Opioids and Overdose (NIH),” said Dr. Moniz. “More people were added to the conversation, including the Police Chief, as well as officers in the Falmouth Fire Department, where my father, who passed away in 2017, was an EMT and captain.”

He also spoke with Falmouth’s two Portuguese-American state representatives, representatives from treatment and harm reduction groups and members of six of the Portuguese and Cape Verdean fraternal and cultural associations.

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