MCAVHN Care and Prevention Network

06/19/2026

06/18/2026

We will be closed for Juneteenth Friday June 19th, to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

During the Civil War period, slavery came to an end in various areas of the United States at different times. Many enslaved Southerners escaped, demanded wages, stopped work, or took up arms against the Confederacy of slave states. In January 1865, Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution for the national abolition of slavery. By June 1865, almost all of the enslaved population had been freed by the victorious Union Army or by state abolition laws. When the national abolition amendment was ratified in December, the remaining enslaved people in Delaware and Kentucky were freed.

Juneteenth was recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when the 117th U.S. Congress enacted and President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Juneteenth became the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983.[10] Juneteenth is also celebrated by the Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles who escaped from slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico.[11]

06/18/2026

55 years ago today, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. The promise was fewer drugs, less addiction, and safer communities. Five decades later, overdose deaths have killed over a million people, stronger drugs like fentanyl emerged, and the current administration is cutting lifesaving treatment and overdose prevention funding while expanding punishment. Swipe to learn more, or read our Q&A: https://drugpolicy.org/.../the-drug-war-had-55-years-we.../

06/18/2026

06/15/2026

Declines in overdose deaths are results of improved public health measures and investing in communities, not deadly and violent so-called "War on Drugs" tactics.
"None of the most plausible explanations for the decline in overdose deaths involves intensifying the drug war. If anything, the evidence points toward lower-risk patterns of drug use, harm reduction, naloxone access, and behavioral adaptation in response to an increasingly dangerous illicit market…nothing in the evidence suggests that bombing suspected traffickers, intensifying interdiction, or escalating prohibition deserves the credit. If bombing traffickers and escalating interdiction were meaningfully reducing supply, illicit drug prices should be rising. Instead, [illicit] markets continue to deliver cheaper, more potent, and more easily transported substances. After more than 50 years of failure, the drug war remains far better at generating black markets than saving lives," this piece via the American Council on Science and Health notes.

Washington will almost certainly try to claim credit for the decline in overdose deaths. But the evidence suggests multiple factors are at play, none of which involve enforcing drug prohibition.

06/15/2026

June 13th was a day for the books! Great interactions with a great a crowd of metal heads and music lovers. This is always a great event for our community.