Strategies

Provide funds to households with low incomes to meet home energy needs, especially for households with children, older adults, or individuals with disabilities

Allow eligible patients to use marijuana for medical purposes; often called medical marijuana laws (MMLs)

Provide medications such as methadone to individuals diagnosed with opioid use disorder in outpatient, residential, and hospital settings, usually with counseling and behavioral therapies; often called MAT

Support programs that provide small loans, usually to individuals with lower incomes, to start or expand a small business, often with business development training and other technical assistance

Maintain the current legal age when an individual can purchase alcoholic beverages; currently 21 years in all states

Increase the lowest hourly, daily, or monthly compensation that employers may legally pay to workers

Support a combination of land uses (e.g., residential, commercial, recreational) in development initiatives, often through zoning regulations or Smart Growth initiatives

Distribute Naloxone to trained community members and first responders to reverse opioid overdoses

Regulate short-term loans that must be repaid by a borrower’s next pay day via bans, caps on maximum interest rates and loan amounts, or require minimum loan terms and credit cost

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly