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A “disaster.” A “radical experiment in lawlessness.” A “five-alarm fire of drug abuse, addiction and death.” This is a taste of the hyperbolic reaction to Oregon’s three-year-old law that decriminalized drug possession.
The criticism was so intense that the state legislature voted last week to roll back the law, known as Measure 110. Gov. Tina Kotek (D) seems likely to sign the bill.
But let’s pause before writing off the measure as a total failure. Although the law was seriously flawed and in need of reform, right-wing dunking on it has been so riven with misinformation and noxious logic that it demands correction.
Measure 110 barred police from arresting people for possessing minor amounts of drugs; instead, they were to issue $100 citations. Those fines could be waived if a suspect called a state-funded hotline and enrolled in an assessment for treatment. Critics contended that this lax approach promoted drug use and worsened the addiction epidemic in the state.
But there is no evidence that’s true. Yes, since Measure 110 was adopted, drug overdoses have surged in Oregon, but that’s the case across the country — and especially on the West Coast — because of the pandemic and the rise of fentanyl. One study shows that Oregon has fared no worse in terms of overdose deaths in recent years than similar states. In fact, a survey last year of people in the state who use drugs found that small percentages — only 7 percent of fentanyl users, for instance — even knew about the law.
What is certain: The law reduced the number of people incarcerated for substance use. That’s important because research consistently shows that people are at higher risk of overdose after incarceration.
For most Oregonians, the biggest problem with the law was how they believed it manifested in their lives: drug paraphernalia and human excrement littering the sidewalks; intoxicated individuals loitering outside businesses; bus shelters converted into smoking dens.
Reasonable people found such behavior uncomfortable — harrowing, even — and assumed Measure 110 was behind it all, despite there being no clear causal link. This is primarily why 56 percent of residents now support undoing the law, even though 58 percent of voters backed it in 2020.
Frustrated voters are upset not so much because the problem has gotten worse but because it’s become more visible. That gets at an irksome aspect of drug policy: Voters are often willing to help people with addiction, as long as it doesn’t affect them in any way.
Advocates of a more humane drug policy are familiar with this phenomenon. When a syringe exchange opened in Charleston, W.Va., to prevent the spread of needle-borne diseases, residents grew furious over an increase in syringe litter. When a Philadelphia nonprofit tried to establish an overdose prevention center, where people could use drugs under medical supervision, critics in the community complained that it would attract drug users to their area.
These reactions are understandable; drug abuse isn’t pretty. But make no mistake: Even if you don’t see the carnage of the overdose epidemic, it’s still there. These programs do not worsen drug use; they simply draw it out of the shadows. If only people could muster the same level of outrage over the fact that hundreds of Americans perish every day behind closed doors.
If Oregon’s law accomplished anything, it’s that it forced the state to reckon with the addiction epidemic in an extremely personal way. This, in turn, pressured state lawmakers to take the overdose crisis seriously.
Which brings me to the law’s greatest shortfall: its ineffective attempt to promote treatment. The cornerstone of Measure 110 rested on a progressive assertion about the “war on drugs” — that fighting the addiction crisis by locking people up isn’t working.
Keeping people out of jail is a worthy cause, but it’s far from sufficient to address the addiction problem. Though the law dedicated new funding for treatment, treatment beds remain sparse and mental health professionals are in short supply. For a sense of scale: A recent report from the Oregon Health Authority estimates the state needs 1,662 more beds for drug and alcohol treatment, more than twice what it currently has.
Moreover, the idea that waiving a $100 fine would be incentive enough for people with substance use disorders to seek help was naive. Even though police have issued thousands of citations, the hotline the state set up to facilitate these waivers has barely been used.
The movement to recriminalize drug use will disappoint progressives, who fear the state is reverting to a status quo that wasn’t working. But Oregon is taking solid steps in the right direction: The bill Oregon lawmakers passed last week includes more than $200 million for medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction in jails and community mental health programs. It also encourages counties to set up “deflection” programs that would get defendants into treatment facilities instead of behind bars.
Those developments might not have happened if it weren’t for Measure 110. Count that as a success.
No, Oregon’s drug decriminalization law was not a failure
17
19
05.03.2024
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A “disaster.” A “radical experiment in lawlessness.” A “five-alarm fire of drug abuse, addiction and death.” This is a taste of the hyperbolic reaction to Oregon’s three-year-old law that decriminalized drug possession.
The criticism was so intense that the state legislature voted last week to roll back the law, known as Measure 110. Gov. Tina Kotek (D) seems likely to sign the bill.
But let’s pause before writing off the measure as a total failure. Although the law was seriously flawed and in need of reform, right-wing dunking on it has been so riven with misinformation and noxious logic that it demands correction.
Measure 110 barred police from arresting people for possessing minor amounts of drugs; instead, they were to issue $100 citations. Those fines could be waived if a suspect called a state-funded hotline and enrolled in an assessment for treatment. Critics contended that this lax approach promoted drug use and worsened the addiction epidemic in the state.
But there is no evidence that’s true. Yes, since Measure 110 was adopted, drug overdoses have surged in Oregon, but that’s the case across the country — and especially on the West Coast — because of the pandemic and the rise of........
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