Oregon is ready to restart the drug war
The Oregon experiment was unique in America, where on any given day 350,000 people – roughly the equivalent of the population of Cleveland – are locked up on drug offenses, and drug-possession arrests occur at a clip of one every 23 seconds… three years later, Measure 110 now stands as a cautionary tale about the failure to match bold policy reform with competent administration… “I intend to sign House Bill 4002 and the related prevention and treatment investments within the next 30 days,” Oregon Goveneor Tina Kotek said in a statement… the state’s new governor, Kotek, campaigned as a defender of Measure 110, and promised to speed up treatment funding and other implementation resources. Research from Portland State University has shown Measure 110 had “no impact” on violent crime and produced at most a “slight uptick” in property crime. Overdose deaths have indeed increased in Oregon – but the trajectory was rising before Measure 110’s passage, and Oregon’s rates are “no different from similar states,” the academics write… correlation is not, in fact, causation. In retrospect, the key driver of Measure 110’s political demise was that it entrusted implementation of a radical drug-policy experiment to rigid state agencies and police bureaus that were not invested in – or even hostile to – its success.
The saying goes that “failure is an orphan.” But the collapse of Oregon’s bold experiment in drug decriminalization has many fathers. Some dynamics were outside of the easy control of local policymakers, including a rising tide of homelessness; the Covid-19 pandemic’s hollowing out center-city commercial life; and the flood of dirt-cheap fentanyl, leading to a scourge of street overdose deaths. But the state bureaucracy also fumbled the implementation of Measure 110, attempting to delay and divert drug-treatment funding; failing to train law enforcement on steering drug users toward rehabilitation; and relying on a cumbersome call center that proved all-but feckless at moving people in out of the grip of addiction and into treatment… The Oregon Health Authority – statutorily responsible for “all necessary support to ensure the implementation” of Measure 110 – also showed little energy in ensuring a successful launch. As detailed in a joint investigation by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica, the agency never developed guidance for local police bureaus about the expanded treatment resources available for people cited for drug possession. Likewise, the Oregon Judicial Department made no effort to create a new drug ticket that would include information about how to secure treatment, meaning cops were left using a general purpose citation like they would for traffic stops… according to state audits, police had previously made about 1,200 arrests a month for drug possession; but they would issue only about 200 possession citations a month after the passage of Measure 110.
Original Article (Rolling Stone & Reuters):
Oregon is ready to restart the drug war & Oregon governor to sign bill recriminalizing drug use
Artwork Fair Use: Oregon State Archives
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