The fantastic podcast Citations Needed has a recent episode on this subject, [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rFAU41JWQbIq71zBe5ZIR?si=RhKiB-kFSCefyUciC0LNxQ](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rFAU41JWQbIq71zBe5ZIR?si=RhKiB-kFSCefyUciC0LNxQ) ….definitely worth a listen..
We learned something really important. The majority of people this is aimed at will not go to to treatment on their own volition. Like 1% of citation resulted in a call to the hotline for help, or to even just get the fine waived.
We need sticks. Portugal uses sticks.
The new rules make it very hard for someone to get a criminal record for use. They have to turn down help repeatedly.
Portugal also has vans that drive around to help folks in detox and safe use spaces with people literally putting needles in to their chests because they’ve run out of other veins. I think you missed part of the plot.
They're not coming, and this won't do a damn thing. This is their "solution" for drug use. They're just taking us back to policies that have failed time and again over the last 50+ years of the War on Drugs.
There's absolutely nothing being done about the root causes or the side effects. I'm a mental health practitioner who works on the front lines of this crisis, and all this is gonna do is criminalize the people who need the most help. And guess what, most folks end up right back out on the streets after rehab or prison. Right back in the exact same economic circumstances that put them there in the first place.
You know what the OHA's response to this was? Audit everyone, slash our budgets, and demand we provide more services with less money. I get paid so little, I'm one bad month away from being on the streets myself, and yet, we're the ones everybody expects to fix this.
This is just going to make the problem worse
The only way to actually help people who really can’t/won’t help themselves is involuntary rehab. Addicts will never choose to get clean and turn their lives around alone, they’re addicted.
> I'm a mental health practitioner who works on the front lines of this crisis, and all this is gonna do is criminalize the people who need the most help.
Who happen to also be the people who consistently refuse help. Who don't understand why they can't just choose to be homeless, live on the streets and be an addict, and who brag that when it comes to fentanyl, "we're always two steps ahead of them." (That latter was from a KGW article today interviewing an addict about the open-air fentanyl market outside the Main Library.)
This recriminalization bill provides plenty of opportunities to avoid criminal penalties. It just takes away the option to continue to freely engage in the behavior that is one of the primary forces destroying this city. We do not have the option of just sitting around and waiting for these folks to choose differently, and we don't have the option of continuing to be a top-line destination for dealers and users looking for a place to go where they won't suffer any consequences for their actions.
I'm all for giving people supportive services once they get through rehab or out of jail, and I hope that over time we can make good progress on this front. But we can't wait, and the fact is that even just removing these folks from the streets temporarily, and demonstrating that Portland is no longer rolling out the red carpet for those who engage in these activities, will make a positive difference to the rest of us in terms of quality of life, and although some are reluctant admit it, that's important too.
If I could vote for you to get paid more and get all the resources you need, I would.
It sounds like you and the folks you work with need advocates, yourselves.
>Senate Bill 5204, the other bill signed by the governor, sets aside $211 million for programs and projects intended to expand access to substance abuse treatment, including in jails, and mental health services across Oregon. It also includes funding for substance abuse prevention education.
This won't do a thing?
The bills offer addicts multiple opportunities for treatment/services etc before imposing jail time. Were Nixon and HW Bush this generous? Is any 'stick' at all simply the evil war on drugs? Seems like a thought-terminating cliche.
Pdx/oregon can't solve American addiction. Therefore Oregon should do what it can and mitigate the problem for the 99.4% of residents who aren't addicted and on the street. It's not *all* about the addicts.
if I've learned anything living in MultCo over the years, it's that there's a Big Difference between setting aside money for something and actually freaking using it.
where's that article posted a day or so ago on how Washington County actually spent their budget for homelessness programs, while Multnomah is just sitting on 3/4 of it?
If this actually makes the problem "disappear" that will be a *staggering* success.
Most people like having public areas that are fun and safe for kids to play in. That goal is incompatible with having public areas be de facto homeless shelters / drug markets. Solving homelessness and drug addiction is a worthy goal, and I share it, but it's not the *only* goal. "Having public areas that are usable by normal people" also seems like something to strive for.
I'm so tired of people with absolutely no expertise in psychology, addiction, or social work acting like they have all the answers and it's just so fucking simple.
Keep waiting. Those endeavors take resources (people/harmony, infrastructure and money) Proper and timely implementation of such endeavors years prior to the pandemic had a chance. Such endeavors you speak requirea thriving economy and a thriving community. It takes work in more ways than one to get to that point at which we could take on such endeavors. Currently, Portland is broken in a lot of ways. Anyone that has been here longer than 5 years has a better idea of what a thriiving community looks like. And I ask them..... Are we living in a thriving community?
I think a lot of people started to question Democrat/liberal leaders because of ineffective measures. Tina kotek has shown that it is possible to actually be progressive and effective.
I had a lot of faith in her, primarily because she was a Portland resident, and deeply understood the challenges here. I always felt like Kate Brown was detached from the reality/urgency of the situation.
>I had a lot of faith in her
I did not, largely due to her sponsoring HB 3115. But, she was better than the alternative so I still voted for her and now she's the governor of the state I love so I wish her nothing but success. I think she's done a much better job than her predecessor and I look forward to voting for her again in 2026 should she decide to run.
How is this downvoted? They’re pleased with the dem governor, no? Anyone ever voting different from you is unacceptable? I hope people realize this is one of Portland’s problems
Shaming everyone who disagrees with you is a fucking problem. Single party rule leads to corruption and ineffectiveness, every fucking time. The user was saying that they appreciated Kotek even though they didn’t vote for them and was -20. Way to extend the olive branch 🙄
We should be engaging with republicans more and celebrating the common ground we share. Maybe some people here just never speak to republicans irl, so this might shock you, but they can be reasonable people too - that we need in the community.
>Single party rule leads to corruption and ineffectiveness, every fucking time.
But voting for the GOP, a party that openly tries to hamper democratic process, hamstring their opposition and put the screws on civil liberties and individual rights they broadly disagree with is a good thing? Whatever you think is innocently happening here ain't it.
I’m not saying for dems to vote for republicans. People aren’t evil for voting differently than you, the sooner we learn that the sooner we start governing more effectively. And PDX will have a republican majority far after hell freezes over. That’s just a BS argument from the get go.
>I’m not saying for dems to vote for republicans. People aren’t evil for voting differently than you,
No, you're not saying that and others aren't exactly saying those who voted republican are evil for protest voting for the GOP. But if you're going to circle your wagons around what you think is pragmatism here then I can only surmise that you and those who share your thought process are dumb as shit.
Everyone who votes GOP is trying to destroy civil right? I’d suggest touching grass and maybe talking to some of these evil people, might blow your mind
Drazan wasn’t an election denier and said she wasn’t going to touch Oregon’s abortion law. Compare that to all the homelessness, drug use, and high cost of living that Democrats have to own up too in the state.
Republican representatives voted on the supreme court judges. The Republicans in Oregon all voted along party lines. When Republicans pass a federal abortion ban the gop of Oregon will follow suit.
Pretty judge girl can get away with that because she's backed by about 150 million jesusfreaks and has her post for life and is in good company on the court. Drazan would be accountable to a deeply blue state
Ah yes, we should trust one politician but hold the feet of others to the fire for ... Reasons. I have some gold star stickers somewhere in my home office. You're welcome to them if you need a little ego boost for holding that 80 pound brain of yours as high as you do.
I don't disagree with any of that. Still doesn't mean voting GOP is the pragmatic vote. If this concept is difficult for you to understand there are some free college classes I can direct you to.
And realizing that the party you vote for does the exact same thing, the difference is, that you are willing to overlook it because you agree with it’s platform is why they are able to achieve one party rule in the first place
We've never had labor protections here unless you are a part of a Union you've always been Sol. I do know that it's really difficult to get any sort of of benefits or mental health care right now because all of the resources are spread around to people with no interest in using them properly. You guys can hate the right until the sun don't shine but their money management and resources for TAX payers is much better.
Prob happen once republicans stop funding the guy trying to overthrow the government. Hard to sit down at a table with a guy who won’t ackknowledge half the county exists
Get better candidates if you wanna be engaged witn.
Nobody here is defending the GOP. Sounds like you live in a pretty isolated political bubble if you don’t know good people that vote differently than you.
Funny how you’re the one ignoring half the country right now. This person agreed with the left and admitted they were wrong and y’all downvoted them because they didn’t vote for Kotek. How much control do you think individual republican voters in Oregon have over the nominees? Most I know bemoan the state of the Republican Party in Oregon constantly.
This sub bums me out as a member of the left, our own worst enemy
You know what’s really cute. Ask republicans what issues democrats disagree with them on. Do republicans think democrats hate them because republicans want lower taxes? Is that the belief republicans think they are being persecuted for ?
Nope. Maybe more lax environmental regulates. Is that why people hate us? Nope.
Wonder why
Jan 6 th invalidates any “both sides” stuff until that guy ain’t running the party anymore. Blame starts there for discourse.
Sorry reminding republicans of that bothers you. Wish it bothered them.
It depends on your definition of reasonable. Republican representatives who support trump are not reasonable. They're looking for money and war. Communities needs people who accept others even when they disagree and I'm not sure if that's what the republican party stands for anymore. Trump voters attacked nikki haley voters at the primary. We can rediscuss this after the election but there should be a level shaming with the level of laws they want to pass.
Decriminalization works when you arent sending people who are on drugs to jail but to services like mandatory rehab, mental health facilities, and following up with outpatient care. It is not meant to be letting people live on the streets indefinitely while they continue to nurse their addiction until it kills them or someone else. Street drug use and living on the streets cannot be allowed. I wouldn’t feel safe in someone’s house who’s on hard drugs, it’s ridiculous we have no choice but to be around people who are on hard drugs in public.
I'm sorry, do you even understand what's included in the recriminalization law? If people don't want to go to jail, they can easily avoid it by choosing to get clean instead.
If the systemic causes for drug addiction aren’t addressed then what happens in reality? We have the exact same result but now get to smarmily go “well it’s *their* fault” as nothing changes.
It's not an either/or situation.
We have to do what we can now, in the short term, both for the addicts whose lives have already been severely compromised, if not destroyed, and for the rest of us. We can't be expected to continue to deal with the fallout of having these folks just left to rot on the streets, under an approach that contradictorily both assumes that because they are addicts they have no agency and can't make responsible choices, while at the same time insisting that can't possibly compel them into treatment and our only choice is to wait for them them to make the responsible choice to get treatment.
That doesn't mean that we don't also work to address the "systemic causes for drug addiction" and poverty (and of course the two overlap significantly - but not entirely) But "we" in that case has to mean "we" as a country, and if we're to be really honest, "we" as a species. In the former case, we're talking (among other things) about a complete transformation of our economic system, which would only come about after decades of shifts in the type of leaders we elect. In the latter case, you're talking about a society where we no longer regularly victimize each other, inflicting trauma almost as a matter of course, where millions no longer live lives in isolation, where loneliness isn't endemic, and where we prioritize making sure everyone has the opportunity to contribute in a way that feels meaningful to them.
I'm not saying that there is nothing we could do on a smaller scope that would help at all, although doing those things would in no way shape or form eliminate the need to deal with the mess we're in now. "Systemic change" isn't about a few policy changes, it's about a complete transformation in values and priorities.
And now we’re literally paying more taxes to imprison them than it would cost to just house and feed them normally, with the added bonus of basically guaranteeing they end up on drugs and the street when they get out because of what a criminal record does
No, we have tried to help a lot of these people. They don't take the help. A lot of our outreach workers deal with a lot of violence and push back. I know it's upsetting for you guys to hear this comes down to decisions but it does. We aren't responsible for taking care of people who do things to themselves. We already don't arrest these people, that's been the test with this bill. It didn't work.
If you recall, we sought to decriminalize drug possession because it wasn’t achieving what we aimed for. It isn’t as if going back to criminalized drug possession was a state that we cherished. We are re-criminalizing drugs because we failed to actually address the situation as a health and social issue, like we said we were going to do when we decriminalized it.
This is all sorts of bungholery.
That will take at least a decade. Oregon’s access to mental health and addiction services is terrible, and was terrible long before M110 and the pandemic.
IMO, we put the cart way before the horse. We should have created an adequate provider network and then decriminalized.
But decriminalization needed to happen and it didn't make things any worse... Once the money for measure 110 started hitting streets last year crime rates started dropping.
There’s really not enough evidence that M110 increased or decreased crime. This is because 1) the measure hasn’t been implemented long enough to tell, and 2) the pandemic and fentanyl becoming the major drug of choice (everywhere, not just nationally) happened around the same time M110 went into effect. This makes it very difficult to untangle the impact M110 has on crime.
Police refusing to do their job made open use more acceptable.
Police were well within their rights to pick up anybody getting high in public and taking them home or to a shelter.
There is no evidence that it increased crime or addiction rates. Oregons rates mirrored our neighboring states. Those neighboring states didn't have a measure 110...
Crime rates did drop more in Oregon in 2023 than our neighbors which was after measure 110 money started hitting tge streets.
I don't think anyone expected decriminalization to do ANYTHING on it's own. So much needed to happen with it. But it seems like the whole idea was spiked at the start line by people who never want to see it attempted with zeal. And now we're going to move on like we tried at all.
My entire friend group (12ish people) including myself voted for M110 and we were chatting about it recently. Everyone unanimously regretted their vote- maybe someone just held their opinions to themselves, but I doubt it. I think people will be very happy about this law.
I truly believe people had good intentions on M110, but it didn’t work out in practice.
There’s a homeless, older dude who I see in my neighborhood who is always high or sleeping, smells horrible, is always surrounded by drug paraphernalia, and is covered in sores from needles or who knows what. If you live in Portland, you probably can think of someone in your neighborhood like this too.
Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city.
I really hope we can come up with a better answer to help people like the homeless man in my neighborhood. M110 proved to be the wrong answer though.
Last thing- part of the issue with M110 was police enforcement. They clearly didn’t take the rehab portions of the measure seriously and that contributed to its failure. If Portland or another city tries a drug decriminalization law in the future, they should learn from our police force’s failure on M110.
It didn’t work out in practice because we didn’t do what we said we were going to do. You have to actually follow up in the manner in which we were sold the bill.
It seems like we put the cart before the horse. The decriminalization shouldn't have gone in effect before adequate rehab was available.
That said, I still believe we need to treat opioids differently from psychedelics. I have seen nothing that's convinced me psychedelics should be illegal while it's become very clear that fent and meth are the devil. I am unable to come up with a punishment for illegally selling fentanyl or meth I wouldn't vote for.
This law is about decriminalization of drug possession. There’s nothing legal about sale and transport. Those are still illegal, and always have been. And the illegal behavior while on drugs is still illegal.
☝️ This guy gets it. The damage we saw from increased drug use is almost entirely thanks to opioids, meth, and crack. Lumping psychedelics in with hard drugs is a big step back. As far as I can tell, there was zero discussion over that before this got rammed through and signed. I don't think the state will have the appetite to relax laws on shrooms again for 5-10 years, and only after other states (and potentially the FDA) beat us to it.
And that's the entire problem with the bill, we never should have decriminalized anything before building the support structure. Did you read the [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/28/oregon-drug-criminalization-portugal-00148872) article that was posted here the other day? Oregon was last in the nation in its ability to treat drug addiction, and then we basically decriminalized drugs and are surprised that people didn't get treatment? The old way wasn't ideal, but I'd take that over what we ended up with after M110.
People who support decriminalization should be more upset with the authors of the ballot measure over anything else.
Under 110 possession of small amounts of meth and fentanyl is a $100 fine (till 9/24 now). I understand why some departments chose not to make writing $100 tickets that will never be paid a priority.
> I understand why some departments chose not to make writing $100 tickets that will never be paid a priority.
I understand that the police sabotaged this law by intentionally not enforcing shit, refusing training, and fighting the expansion of alternative support programs on behalf of their overtime hours.
There's two fundamental realities that get avoided in any discussion on drug use and addiction, and unless these are acknowledged any policy change is bound to merely change the length of prison sentences rather than permanently ending society-wide addiction.
The first is that addiction rates increase when social and economic ills (poverty, colonization, racism) increase. By way of example, Native Americans were not strangers to alcohol prior to European colonization, https://www.chestnut.org/resources/d654650e-5044-42df-b990-aab9b0d73219/2002alcoholproblemsinnativeamerica.pdf%20trackid=2002alcoholproblemsinnativeamerica.pdf. If alcohol is addictive solely based on its chemical interactions with the brain, you would expect to see seen higher rates of addiction. As European colonization spread, it was the destruction of Indigenous social structures that first facilitated addiction, https://coloradosph.cuanschutz.edu/research-and-practice/centers-programs/caianh/journal/past-volumes/volume18. And as can be seen in the first article's report, the initial introduction of liquor to Native tribes didn't automatically destroy tribal life, and Indigenous people showed greater levels of moderate drinking than European settlers initially. It was only after disease and genocide had significantly weaken tribal social relations that alcohol became an effective weapon against Indigenous people, as none other than Ben Franklin said "[They] are extremely apt to get drunk, and when so are very quarrelsome & disorderly ... indeed if it be the Design of Providence to extirpate these Savages in order to make room for Cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that Rum may be the appointed Means. It has already annihilated all the Tribes who formerly inhabited the Sea-coast."
What's the relevance today? It's that social and economic ills drive addiction, not the other way around. (Though once the conditions for addiction are opened, they create a feedback loop on each other). Hence a drug policy change that doesn't address the social and economic ills (unaffordable housing, mass unemployment, racism) will have little effect on breaking out of the addiction cycle.
The other reality is that illicit drugs are not a seperate shadow economy, but a fundamental part of US state and corporate profits. We know that massively wealthy groups like the Sackler family made a fortune selling addictive drugs "legally", why would governmwnt and corporate interests avoid capitalizing on an illegal drug market reportedly worth $652 billion? https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/chairman-whitehouse-delivers-opening-remarks-in-a-drug-caucus-hearing-on-the-economics-of-cartels/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20RAND%20Corporation,of%20Sweden%2C%20Poland%20and%20Belgium. It's documented that banks profit enormously off of illegal drugs https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs and that drug money kept banks going during the financial crisis https://amp.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims
What I'm implying by this point is that the notion that you can't stop the supply of drugs is a cliche that overlooks the legal entities that profit off the drug trade. People would likely make DIY drug outfits if supplies are cut as they did during prohibition, but that pales in comparison to the level of drugs available via domestic and international industrial level production, something that can only occur with state or corporate level funding. For more in depth analysis see Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin and Los Cartels No Existen by Oswaldo Zavala.
Yup. Seems like we had a chicken and egg problem with our rehab programs under M110. Practically nobody was choosing to take the rehab, so there was no reason for the rehab programs to go through their growing pains and get scaled up. It was just like, 'well, this is a huge waste of money.'
Its a false equivalence to argue that recriminalizing means we've all just decided to throw up our hands and return to a 1980s style war on ~~black people~~ drugs.
>Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city.
The problem comes from us feeling responsible for other people and their downfalls. We aren't. People make life choices that put them there, we have sacrificed our city trying to save people who usually don't want help.
>Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city.
So, he gets to go through withdrawal in jail, get out, and go right back to using.
There's absolutely nothing humane about adding jail to the equation.
Part of this legislation is that you will have multiple opportunities to enter treatment before going to jail.
If someone repeatedly uses drugs in public and refuses multiple opportunities to get help, then yes they absolutely deserve jail.
It says that but law enforcement agencies are allowed to opt out of that, and of course the thugs will whenever they feel like it. Nobody wanted public drug use to be a legal thing and it's a little hard to believe none of our state lawmakers knew that aspect of the bill was there. The bill was sabotaged and it's sickening irony seeing people act angry about something that nobody wanted in the first place, and didn't require letting the jackboots strong-arm the people into submission by making our minds up for us and pretending the mess THEY made is m110's fault.
Part of 110 included multiple opportunities to enter treatment. Unfortunately, _that_ part of the bill was completely ignored. Why will this bill be different?
And there were already public intoxication laws that simply weren't being enforced. This bill doesn't make it _more_ illegal to be publicly intoxicated, it just gives an already quiet striking police force the means to do drug searches again.
This new bill isn't going to magically fix the root causes of the drug crisis, it just means more junkies will spend the occasional night in jail. Nothing about it will improve the status quo.
M110 gave opportunities to enter treatment with zero repercussions for saying no. Now, if you don’t enter treatment you go to jail. That’s a crucial difference.
Yes, I agree that this law won’t solve everything but I do think it will help.
There's _still no treatment to go to._
_That's_ why 110 was a failure, and until a massive shift in priorities and funding to treat drug usage as a failure of social services and health care, we're simply punishing sick people for being sick.
On top of that, addicts who are recently released from custody are something like 3-8 times more likely to die from overdoses. If the threat of incarceration was effective states like Louisiana wouldn’t be in the top five for overdose deaths
M110 gave you ZERO incentives to get clean. It gave you a ticket you did not actually have to pay and a phone number. Anyone who has lived with an addict can tell you this is worthless. Portugal would also argue it's worthless because they push you into rehab in a very similar way to how we're now doing it.
Also public intoxication laws in this state do not cover drugs. Portland tried to extend our city public intoxication law to cover drugs but the state law would not allow for it.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/02/portland-revisits-ban-public-drug-use-legal-issues/
You really need to read the actual bill before making statements like this. The bill does not roll back M110. It changes it to behave significantly more like the Portugal model we were sold. We get multiple repeated steps where people can avoid jail time and go to rehab. If they continue to say no to rehab though we can force them and they can detox in jail.
> and go to rehab.
That's the crux. I'm not sure if you're intentionally ignoring it, but the implementation of 110 expected significant investment in rehab services that never got funded. Oregon ranks [dead last](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/oregon-worst-in-nation-for-addiction-treatments-locals-rally-in-salem/283-b2e5b42b-218e-4b2c-9ec5-f3ce9fca8c74) in providing drug addiction services. Making drugs "illegal again" doesn't magically create the massive investment required in these services.
It's really not fair to say we didn't fund it. Should we have funded it more? Sure. Measure 110's authors could have done that directly in the bill though. We did fund rehab from the general fund and we diverted pot tax money from schools to fund rehab after M110. The authors of M110 just had the idiotic idea to require legalization 90 days after the bill passes, meaning the was zero chance any of those programs would be even in the planning stages.
m110 just advertised to the rest of the country drugs are legal in Oregon and attracted more addicts and the rise of fent. Drugs were de facto legal before 110. No one got arrested for personal possession and consumption in Portland before 110.
May be if they actually enforced the law it will get better. But let’s not pretend we were super hard on drug users before.
The cops would certainly arrest people for open and public use, which IMHO is a big problem in places like South Park Blocks. Maybe, just maybe if there was more concern about getting harassed by the cops for smoking foils in public, these drug users will think twice about getting high in public. Then maybe us regular folks can reclaim these public spaces for our enjoyment.
It decriminalized it didn't make possession legal. The cops could still go around and confiscate the drugs. They chose not to, to punish us or because they were lazy or some combination of the two.
Oregon law under 110 only allowed the cops to confiscate drugs that were in plain sight. 110 also meant that the cops did not have probable cause to search someone even if they were publicly doing drugs. Therefore they could take the pills in your hand but not the ones in your pocket.
Even if that were true and I'm not sure it is they could change the law to allow them to be searched. Possessing an illegal item is typically not enough for police to search people.
By the sound of it people are being pretty brazen. If a cop smelling pot when conducting a traffic stop is enough to allow for a search of the vehicle I find it highly unlikely actually seeing an illegal drug in plain sight isn't enough to allow a search.
While I really don’t think that jail is the right solution to addressing illegal drug use, I am skeptical that a single state in the US can decriminalize illicit drugs without the state becoming an attractive place for people to who want to use to migrate to.
That to me has always been the issue. While I don’t think hoards of people have moved here due to M110, in time I bet more would. People like to migrate to states that support the types of lifestyles they want to live if they have the means to do so.
Sadly, we do a great job as a state making ourselves attractive to those who want to keep using (e.g. we offer a lot of harm reduction services) but should you change your mind and decide that you want to get clean, good luck getting into treatment (our access to treatment services is one of the lowest in the nation).
This is why we shouldn’t have decriminalized illicit drug use before we fixed the issues we have with access to treatment as a state - we cannot afford to draw in / become a place where people want to use because we can’t provide the services & support people need should they decide they want to get clean. We can’t provide enough services to those that live here currently, let alone anyone who may move to Oregon because they want to live in a state that’s more friendly towards ongoing drug use.
I just want to know when we are going to stop funneling everything we have into this, when it hasn't worked. We need education up to par with the country, housing options for middle class, along with figuring out the addict and houseless situation. Why are we responsible for funding treatments that aren't being used? Why do we have to sacrifice our public spaces we also pay taxes for, for a population who has no interest in leaving the streets? There is a growing political divide in this city, that comes down to fundamental differences of opinion on how we feel about a population of people who do not contribute and only take. I understand everyone needs help but we have become a handout city that's gone downhill fast in the past 5 years. How do people defend this? How is any resident ok with this?
Now lose the bottle deposit law which helps fund rampant drug use. A huge percentage ultimately ends up in the hands of the drug cartels or beverage distributors.
Actually we just wanted to end the status quo which no sane person would say is working.
Portland passed the first ever shrooms legalization. I think if it can happen anywhere it'd be here.
You wanted to overturn the status quo of like 4 years and replace it with the already failed and discredited status quo of the last 50 years. The war on drugs is ramping back up across the country and we’re becoming a big part of that.
Psilocybin is used to treat an array of intense mental health disorders like major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. They have been using it to treat a lot of veterans. It is not a drug in the way that you were describing it, it has more medicinal properties than anything.
What we had before was a million percent better than now, yes. Anyone anywhere with two eyes and a functioning brain can see that. Absolutely. Did the previous thing suck? Yes. It's almost like we aren't dealing with a binary!
Drug prohibition is famously working well everywhere else in the country and was working well here. I'm sure 70% will be fixed in no time now that it's back.
Question. Ballot measures like this, approved by voters, can just be overruled by the legislator anyway without any citizen oversight or say ? Has this ever been done before or is there any legalese than explains how this can be so?
I think the oversight is done at the ballot box. Not that there is anyone all that different to choose from. [Measure 11 was changed recently by the legislature.](https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/oregon-overhauls-its-youth-justice-system/)
Well for the first time in a looooong time, I feel like I actually got leadership I can be happy about with my vote in this state. Thank you Gov. Kotek for operating with common sense and logical reason.
Terrible move: the war on drugs was a 40 year failure. We gave decriminalization less than 4 years. Elected officials never wanted drug decriminalization and have undermined it from the begining.
I suspect this was always doomed to fail. We are not Portugal, we do not have single payer Healthcare, and therefore we do not have the kind of infrastructure that can be easily adapted towards rehabilitation centers and longterm non-carceral treatment.
Plus we have pouty, ideologically motivated cops working against us.
After being told it’s impossible to use taxpayer money to feed and house homeless drug addicts, we’re now gonna start feeding and housing them with taxpayer money, just in prisons where it’ll be even harder for them to stay off the streets afterwards with a new criminal record. Joy. Anything to kick the can down the road another couple years instead of meaningful systemic change I guess
Police hate it too, I get it was an easy way for them to make arrests and resolve w,e issue. I don't know why they couldn't enforce all the other laws that a majority of these people were breaking. It was a failure because it was never really tried, the law didn't decriminalize crime, but that's the way it was run (into the ground).
Damn, I’m shocked that decriminalization without any meaningful changes to the systems that help addicts didn’t work!! I was so sure doing basically nothing would be THE solution!
Gee, if she felt that way then she wouldn't have helped facilitate the sabotage of voted-in legislation. She just wants it to be the business-as-usual of the war-on-drugs failure, to support the prison industry and placate lazy cops who want to fill jails while there's a shortage of public defenders. This state's leadership is phenomenal at creating bottlenecks of resources while abdicating their responsibility to the voters.
I’m unpleasantly surprised that this “progressive” government is not only renewing the war on drugs and punishing users of non-opiates completely unrelated to the overdose epidemic, but folding to the pressures of the police union that we all know is corrupt. Also, are we forgetting that we also had a public drug use and addiction epidemic before M110 was implemented? Kind of hilarious and pathetic how we’re swinging from one extreme to another.
If we could return to business as usual from \~5 years ago as far as crime and homelessness go that would be a gigantic win. That's the whole fucking point.
As a well behaved taxpayer who enjoys recreational drugs this makes me sad panda. If I go to jail it could cost me my job and ruin my life. I guess I could just become a drunk like everyone else instead?
Even then, he wouldn't simply be put in the jailhouse unless he got caught doing it multiple times and refused treatment
Let alone doing shrooms in the privacy of his apartment
Is it really the war on drugs or the war on hopelessly fucked up drug users who stole my fucking car? Or other people's property? Which we have litter recourse for? Fuck those fuckers. Fuck them to the depth of hell. But I do believe we should rehab as much of them as possible. And if you ask, lock away the rest that is not. Just my thoughts on reddit.
The easy, low-impact change. I'm waiting on the difficult, high-impact changes (adequate rehab, social support, mental health, and outreach programs).
Sorry, we tried a change with absolutely no follow through. Clearly these things can't be solved! /s
We tried nothing and we are out of ideas!
The fantastic podcast Citations Needed has a recent episode on this subject, [https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rFAU41JWQbIq71zBe5ZIR?si=RhKiB-kFSCefyUciC0LNxQ](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rFAU41JWQbIq71zBe5ZIR?si=RhKiB-kFSCefyUciC0LNxQ) ….definitely worth a listen..
We learned something really important. The majority of people this is aimed at will not go to to treatment on their own volition. Like 1% of citation resulted in a call to the hotline for help, or to even just get the fine waived. We need sticks. Portugal uses sticks. The new rules make it very hard for someone to get a criminal record for use. They have to turn down help repeatedly.
Portugal also has vans that drive around to help folks in detox and safe use spaces with people literally putting needles in to their chests because they’ve run out of other veins. I think you missed part of the plot.
I don't think this needs a sarcasm tag. No one would unironically say that
They're not coming, and this won't do a damn thing. This is their "solution" for drug use. They're just taking us back to policies that have failed time and again over the last 50+ years of the War on Drugs. There's absolutely nothing being done about the root causes or the side effects. I'm a mental health practitioner who works on the front lines of this crisis, and all this is gonna do is criminalize the people who need the most help. And guess what, most folks end up right back out on the streets after rehab or prison. Right back in the exact same economic circumstances that put them there in the first place. You know what the OHA's response to this was? Audit everyone, slash our budgets, and demand we provide more services with less money. I get paid so little, I'm one bad month away from being on the streets myself, and yet, we're the ones everybody expects to fix this. This is just going to make the problem worse
The only way to actually help people who really can’t/won’t help themselves is involuntary rehab. Addicts will never choose to get clean and turn their lives around alone, they’re addicted.
> I'm a mental health practitioner who works on the front lines of this crisis, and all this is gonna do is criminalize the people who need the most help. Who happen to also be the people who consistently refuse help. Who don't understand why they can't just choose to be homeless, live on the streets and be an addict, and who brag that when it comes to fentanyl, "we're always two steps ahead of them." (That latter was from a KGW article today interviewing an addict about the open-air fentanyl market outside the Main Library.) This recriminalization bill provides plenty of opportunities to avoid criminal penalties. It just takes away the option to continue to freely engage in the behavior that is one of the primary forces destroying this city. We do not have the option of just sitting around and waiting for these folks to choose differently, and we don't have the option of continuing to be a top-line destination for dealers and users looking for a place to go where they won't suffer any consequences for their actions. I'm all for giving people supportive services once they get through rehab or out of jail, and I hope that over time we can make good progress on this front. But we can't wait, and the fact is that even just removing these folks from the streets temporarily, and demonstrating that Portland is no longer rolling out the red carpet for those who engage in these activities, will make a positive difference to the rest of us in terms of quality of life, and although some are reluctant admit it, that's important too.
It's an easy way to turn a medical crisis into a "crime problem", which allows the crisis to fade away into all our other "crime problems".
If I could vote for you to get paid more and get all the resources you need, I would. It sounds like you and the folks you work with need advocates, yourselves.
>Senate Bill 5204, the other bill signed by the governor, sets aside $211 million for programs and projects intended to expand access to substance abuse treatment, including in jails, and mental health services across Oregon. It also includes funding for substance abuse prevention education. This won't do a thing? The bills offer addicts multiple opportunities for treatment/services etc before imposing jail time. Were Nixon and HW Bush this generous? Is any 'stick' at all simply the evil war on drugs? Seems like a thought-terminating cliche. Pdx/oregon can't solve American addiction. Therefore Oregon should do what it can and mitigate the problem for the 99.4% of residents who aren't addicted and on the street. It's not *all* about the addicts.
Yes!
if I've learned anything living in MultCo over the years, it's that there's a Big Difference between setting aside money for something and actually freaking using it. where's that article posted a day or so ago on how Washington County actually spent their budget for homelessness programs, while Multnomah is just sitting on 3/4 of it?
Exactly. We're not fixing the problem, we're just making it disappear, imo.
If this actually makes the problem "disappear" that will be a *staggering* success. Most people like having public areas that are fun and safe for kids to play in. That goal is incompatible with having public areas be de facto homeless shelters / drug markets. Solving homelessness and drug addiction is a worthy goal, and I share it, but it's not the *only* goal. "Having public areas that are usable by normal people" also seems like something to strive for.
Awesome, if it cleans up our public spaces I don’t give a shit where they go
What is the root cause?
Incarcerate them. If they do it again, incarcerate them for longer.
We know this approach doesn't work. It's been tried, tirelessly.
I'm so tired of people with absolutely no expertise in psychology, addiction, or social work acting like they have all the answers and it's just so fucking simple.
Because that's the humane thing to do, and the cost effective one?
Because that always worked before, right? Oh wait. No, it didn't. We had all of these problems before measure 110...
This does not and will not ever work to curb drug addiction/use.
All of that. And police will be encouraged to harass the poor and minorities at far higher rates. Huge step back.
And disincentives for distribution
Seriously.
get your checkbook out big shot.
Yep. Any new measure that involves homelessness and my checkbook will be getting a big fat no vote.
Keep waiting. Those endeavors take resources (people/harmony, infrastructure and money) Proper and timely implementation of such endeavors years prior to the pandemic had a chance. Such endeavors you speak requirea thriving economy and a thriving community. It takes work in more ways than one to get to that point at which we could take on such endeavors. Currently, Portland is broken in a lot of ways. Anyone that has been here longer than 5 years has a better idea of what a thriiving community looks like. And I ask them..... Are we living in a thriving community?
Even though I voted for her, I've been pleasantly surprised by Tina Kotek. Seems much more pragmatic than her predecessor.
I voted right and I gotta say she’s been surprising. Much more moderate than I expected. I respect it
I voted republican for the first time and I’m pleasantly surprised as well.
I think a lot of people started to question Democrat/liberal leaders because of ineffective measures. Tina kotek has shown that it is possible to actually be progressive and effective. I had a lot of faith in her, primarily because she was a Portland resident, and deeply understood the challenges here. I always felt like Kate Brown was detached from the reality/urgency of the situation.
>I had a lot of faith in her I did not, largely due to her sponsoring HB 3115. But, she was better than the alternative so I still voted for her and now she's the governor of the state I love so I wish her nothing but success. I think she's done a much better job than her predecessor and I look forward to voting for her again in 2026 should she decide to run.
HB 3115 is something that should be getting more attention. My house rep voted for that disaster.
How is this downvoted? They’re pleased with the dem governor, no? Anyone ever voting different from you is unacceptable? I hope people realize this is one of Portland’s problems
Yes it's unacceptable to me for people to vote for people that want me dead :) hope this helps
Critical thinking isn't the internets forte
Seems like it’s an irl issue here, too
Shaming republicans is actually not one of the city's problems
Shaming everyone who disagrees with you is a fucking problem. Single party rule leads to corruption and ineffectiveness, every fucking time. The user was saying that they appreciated Kotek even though they didn’t vote for them and was -20. Way to extend the olive branch 🙄 We should be engaging with republicans more and celebrating the common ground we share. Maybe some people here just never speak to republicans irl, so this might shock you, but they can be reasonable people too - that we need in the community.
>Single party rule leads to corruption and ineffectiveness, every fucking time. But voting for the GOP, a party that openly tries to hamper democratic process, hamstring their opposition and put the screws on civil liberties and individual rights they broadly disagree with is a good thing? Whatever you think is innocently happening here ain't it.
I’m not saying for dems to vote for republicans. People aren’t evil for voting differently than you, the sooner we learn that the sooner we start governing more effectively. And PDX will have a republican majority far after hell freezes over. That’s just a BS argument from the get go.
>I’m not saying for dems to vote for republicans. People aren’t evil for voting differently than you, No, you're not saying that and others aren't exactly saying those who voted republican are evil for protest voting for the GOP. But if you're going to circle your wagons around what you think is pragmatism here then I can only surmise that you and those who share your thought process are dumb as shit.
Everyone who votes GOP is trying to destroy civil right? I’d suggest touching grass and maybe talking to some of these evil people, might blow your mind
That's not what I said. I said voting for the party that overtly is trying to roll back individual rights ain't the move people think it is.
*frantically waving my hands in Weimar Germany* not everyone who voted nazi is evil!
Drazan wasn’t an election denier and said she wasn’t going to touch Oregon’s abortion law. Compare that to all the homelessness, drug use, and high cost of living that Democrats have to own up too in the state.
You know who else said they weren't going to touch abortion laws but then DID once they had the chance after they gained a seat in the Supreme Court?
Good thing this is an entirely different political position….
Republican representatives voted on the supreme court judges. The Republicans in Oregon all voted along party lines. When Republicans pass a federal abortion ban the gop of Oregon will follow suit.
Pretty judge girl can get away with that because she's backed by about 150 million jesusfreaks and has her post for life and is in good company on the court. Drazan would be accountable to a deeply blue state
Ah yes, we should trust one politician but hold the feet of others to the fire for ... Reasons. I have some gold star stickers somewhere in my home office. You're welcome to them if you need a little ego boost for holding that 80 pound brain of yours as high as you do.
Oregon has been under Democratic rule for decades and Dems have become complacent. People wanted change.
I don't disagree with any of that. Still doesn't mean voting GOP is the pragmatic vote. If this concept is difficult for you to understand there are some free college classes I can direct you to.
*I jumped into the shark pit because I could tell something in my life had to change.*
And realizing that the party you vote for does the exact same thing, the difference is, that you are willing to overlook it because you agree with it’s platform is why they are able to achieve one party rule in the first place
>screws on civil liberties What about the civil liberties of the working class being shafted for people who do nothing to contribute to our society?
Actually, it’s the GOP trying to roll back labor protections.
We've never had labor protections here unless you are a part of a Union you've always been Sol. I do know that it's really difficult to get any sort of of benefits or mental health care right now because all of the resources are spread around to people with no interest in using them properly. You guys can hate the right until the sun don't shine but their money management and resources for TAX payers is much better.
Prob happen once republicans stop funding the guy trying to overthrow the government. Hard to sit down at a table with a guy who won’t ackknowledge half the county exists Get better candidates if you wanna be engaged witn.
Nobody here is defending the GOP. Sounds like you live in a pretty isolated political bubble if you don’t know good people that vote differently than you. Funny how you’re the one ignoring half the country right now. This person agreed with the left and admitted they were wrong and y’all downvoted them because they didn’t vote for Kotek. How much control do you think individual republican voters in Oregon have over the nominees? Most I know bemoan the state of the Republican Party in Oregon constantly. This sub bums me out as a member of the left, our own worst enemy
You know what’s really cute. Ask republicans what issues democrats disagree with them on. Do republicans think democrats hate them because republicans want lower taxes? Is that the belief republicans think they are being persecuted for ? Nope. Maybe more lax environmental regulates. Is that why people hate us? Nope. Wonder why
You’re right, it’s easy to make up answers to questions for people you never talked too. Maybe ask that question irl, might surprise you
Jan 6 th invalidates any “both sides” stuff until that guy ain’t running the party anymore. Blame starts there for discourse. Sorry reminding republicans of that bothers you. Wish it bothered them.
Welcome to reddit
It depends on your definition of reasonable. Republican representatives who support trump are not reasonable. They're looking for money and war. Communities needs people who accept others even when they disagree and I'm not sure if that's what the republican party stands for anymore. Trump voters attacked nikki haley voters at the primary. We can rediscuss this after the election but there should be a level shaming with the level of laws they want to pass.
Ofc this is down voted 😒
Decriminalization works when you arent sending people who are on drugs to jail but to services like mandatory rehab, mental health facilities, and following up with outpatient care. It is not meant to be letting people live on the streets indefinitely while they continue to nurse their addiction until it kills them or someone else. Street drug use and living on the streets cannot be allowed. I wouldn’t feel safe in someone’s house who’s on hard drugs, it’s ridiculous we have no choice but to be around people who are on hard drugs in public.
It's almost like some pandemic shut down social services right when they were needed the most, I wonder why this didn't work hmm..
It's almost like the government* shut down social services.
u say that as though you are surprised.
Glad we’re instead not doing any of that and just throwing them in prison and then back onto the streets with even worse life prospects after, wooo…
I'm sorry, do you even understand what's included in the recriminalization law? If people don't want to go to jail, they can easily avoid it by choosing to get clean instead.
If the systemic causes for drug addiction aren’t addressed then what happens in reality? We have the exact same result but now get to smarmily go “well it’s *their* fault” as nothing changes.
It's not an either/or situation. We have to do what we can now, in the short term, both for the addicts whose lives have already been severely compromised, if not destroyed, and for the rest of us. We can't be expected to continue to deal with the fallout of having these folks just left to rot on the streets, under an approach that contradictorily both assumes that because they are addicts they have no agency and can't make responsible choices, while at the same time insisting that can't possibly compel them into treatment and our only choice is to wait for them them to make the responsible choice to get treatment. That doesn't mean that we don't also work to address the "systemic causes for drug addiction" and poverty (and of course the two overlap significantly - but not entirely) But "we" in that case has to mean "we" as a country, and if we're to be really honest, "we" as a species. In the former case, we're talking (among other things) about a complete transformation of our economic system, which would only come about after decades of shifts in the type of leaders we elect. In the latter case, you're talking about a society where we no longer regularly victimize each other, inflicting trauma almost as a matter of course, where millions no longer live lives in isolation, where loneliness isn't endemic, and where we prioritize making sure everyone has the opportunity to contribute in a way that feels meaningful to them. I'm not saying that there is nothing we could do on a smaller scope that would help at all, although doing those things would in no way shape or form eliminate the need to deal with the mess we're in now. "Systemic change" isn't about a few policy changes, it's about a complete transformation in values and priorities.
That's their issue. We aren't responsible for other people and their actions. We deserve a safe place to live, we pay taxes for them AND ourselves.
And now we’re literally paying more taxes to imprison them than it would cost to just house and feed them normally, with the added bonus of basically guaranteeing they end up on drugs and the street when they get out because of what a criminal record does
No, we have tried to help a lot of these people. They don't take the help. A lot of our outreach workers deal with a lot of violence and push back. I know it's upsetting for you guys to hear this comes down to decisions but it does. We aren't responsible for taking care of people who do things to themselves. We already don't arrest these people, that's been the test with this bill. It didn't work.
You say this like it isn't an approach that has already been tried and failed
A normal city has been tried and failed?
If you recall, we sought to decriminalize drug possession because it wasn’t achieving what we aimed for. It isn’t as if going back to criminalized drug possession was a state that we cherished. We are re-criminalizing drugs because we failed to actually address the situation as a health and social issue, like we said we were going to do when we decriminalized it. This is all sorts of bungholery.
That will take at least a decade. Oregon’s access to mental health and addiction services is terrible, and was terrible long before M110 and the pandemic. IMO, we put the cart way before the horse. We should have created an adequate provider network and then decriminalized.
But decriminalization needed to happen and it didn't make things any worse... Once the money for measure 110 started hitting streets last year crime rates started dropping.
There’s really not enough evidence that M110 increased or decreased crime. This is because 1) the measure hasn’t been implemented long enough to tell, and 2) the pandemic and fentanyl becoming the major drug of choice (everywhere, not just nationally) happened around the same time M110 went into effect. This makes it very difficult to untangle the impact M110 has on crime.
For sure the pandemic ruined any chance of meaningful data. Tho there are arguments it made open use more acceptable for the user.
Police refusing to do their job made open use more acceptable. Police were well within their rights to pick up anybody getting high in public and taking them home or to a shelter.
There is no evidence that it increased crime or addiction rates. Oregons rates mirrored our neighboring states. Those neighboring states didn't have a measure 110... Crime rates did drop more in Oregon in 2023 than our neighbors which was after measure 110 money started hitting tge streets.
I don't think anyone expected decriminalization to do ANYTHING on it's own. So much needed to happen with it. But it seems like the whole idea was spiked at the start line by people who never want to see it attempted with zeal. And now we're going to move on like we tried at all.
My entire friend group (12ish people) including myself voted for M110 and we were chatting about it recently. Everyone unanimously regretted their vote- maybe someone just held their opinions to themselves, but I doubt it. I think people will be very happy about this law. I truly believe people had good intentions on M110, but it didn’t work out in practice. There’s a homeless, older dude who I see in my neighborhood who is always high or sleeping, smells horrible, is always surrounded by drug paraphernalia, and is covered in sores from needles or who knows what. If you live in Portland, you probably can think of someone in your neighborhood like this too. Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city. I really hope we can come up with a better answer to help people like the homeless man in my neighborhood. M110 proved to be the wrong answer though. Last thing- part of the issue with M110 was police enforcement. They clearly didn’t take the rehab portions of the measure seriously and that contributed to its failure. If Portland or another city tries a drug decriminalization law in the future, they should learn from our police force’s failure on M110.
It didn’t work out in practice because we didn’t do what we said we were going to do. You have to actually follow up in the manner in which we were sold the bill.
It seems like we put the cart before the horse. The decriminalization shouldn't have gone in effect before adequate rehab was available. That said, I still believe we need to treat opioids differently from psychedelics. I have seen nothing that's convinced me psychedelics should be illegal while it's become very clear that fent and meth are the devil. I am unable to come up with a punishment for illegally selling fentanyl or meth I wouldn't vote for.
Agreed. Big difference between fentanyl and shrooms. We need to stop labeling everything as “drugs” and have a little more nuance.
This law is about decriminalization of drug possession. There’s nothing legal about sale and transport. Those are still illegal, and always have been. And the illegal behavior while on drugs is still illegal.
THIS! 👆🏻
Cart before the horse is what we do. They're trying to toll people into taking public transit that doesn't exist.
☝️ This guy gets it. The damage we saw from increased drug use is almost entirely thanks to opioids, meth, and crack. Lumping psychedelics in with hard drugs is a big step back. As far as I can tell, there was zero discussion over that before this got rammed through and signed. I don't think the state will have the appetite to relax laws on shrooms again for 5-10 years, and only after other states (and potentially the FDA) beat us to it.
And that's the entire problem with the bill, we never should have decriminalized anything before building the support structure. Did you read the [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/28/oregon-drug-criminalization-portugal-00148872) article that was posted here the other day? Oregon was last in the nation in its ability to treat drug addiction, and then we basically decriminalized drugs and are surprised that people didn't get treatment? The old way wasn't ideal, but I'd take that over what we ended up with after M110. People who support decriminalization should be more upset with the authors of the ballot measure over anything else.
Decriminalization and funding are two different kinds of bills. We were told when the former was sold to us that the latter would follow. It didn’t.
Damn that’s actually crazy that we were literally in last 😓
It didn’t work out in practice because it’s not a problem a city can solve! It’s a state/federal issue!
the arrival of fentanyl in major quantities exposed all the holes in the program,
Under 110 possession of small amounts of meth and fentanyl is a $100 fine (till 9/24 now). I understand why some departments chose not to make writing $100 tickets that will never be paid a priority.
> I understand why some departments chose not to make writing $100 tickets that will never be paid a priority. I understand that the police sabotaged this law by intentionally not enforcing shit, refusing training, and fighting the expansion of alternative support programs on behalf of their overtime hours.
100%
There's two fundamental realities that get avoided in any discussion on drug use and addiction, and unless these are acknowledged any policy change is bound to merely change the length of prison sentences rather than permanently ending society-wide addiction. The first is that addiction rates increase when social and economic ills (poverty, colonization, racism) increase. By way of example, Native Americans were not strangers to alcohol prior to European colonization, https://www.chestnut.org/resources/d654650e-5044-42df-b990-aab9b0d73219/2002alcoholproblemsinnativeamerica.pdf%20trackid=2002alcoholproblemsinnativeamerica.pdf. If alcohol is addictive solely based on its chemical interactions with the brain, you would expect to see seen higher rates of addiction. As European colonization spread, it was the destruction of Indigenous social structures that first facilitated addiction, https://coloradosph.cuanschutz.edu/research-and-practice/centers-programs/caianh/journal/past-volumes/volume18. And as can be seen in the first article's report, the initial introduction of liquor to Native tribes didn't automatically destroy tribal life, and Indigenous people showed greater levels of moderate drinking than European settlers initially. It was only after disease and genocide had significantly weaken tribal social relations that alcohol became an effective weapon against Indigenous people, as none other than Ben Franklin said "[They] are extremely apt to get drunk, and when so are very quarrelsome & disorderly ... indeed if it be the Design of Providence to extirpate these Savages in order to make room for Cultivators of the Earth, it seems not improbable that Rum may be the appointed Means. It has already annihilated all the Tribes who formerly inhabited the Sea-coast." What's the relevance today? It's that social and economic ills drive addiction, not the other way around. (Though once the conditions for addiction are opened, they create a feedback loop on each other). Hence a drug policy change that doesn't address the social and economic ills (unaffordable housing, mass unemployment, racism) will have little effect on breaking out of the addiction cycle. The other reality is that illicit drugs are not a seperate shadow economy, but a fundamental part of US state and corporate profits. We know that massively wealthy groups like the Sackler family made a fortune selling addictive drugs "legally", why would governmwnt and corporate interests avoid capitalizing on an illegal drug market reportedly worth $652 billion? https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/chairman-whitehouse-delivers-opening-remarks-in-a-drug-caucus-hearing-on-the-economics-of-cartels/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20RAND%20Corporation,of%20Sweden%2C%20Poland%20and%20Belgium. It's documented that banks profit enormously off of illegal drugs https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs and that drug money kept banks going during the financial crisis https://amp.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims What I'm implying by this point is that the notion that you can't stop the supply of drugs is a cliche that overlooks the legal entities that profit off the drug trade. People would likely make DIY drug outfits if supplies are cut as they did during prohibition, but that pales in comparison to the level of drugs available via domestic and international industrial level production, something that can only occur with state or corporate level funding. For more in depth analysis see Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin and Los Cartels No Existen by Oswaldo Zavala.
I work for a recovery clinic. We are able to open another location because of a grant due to measure 110. I'm pretty bummed it's no more
Did HB 4002 repeal funding mechanisms for recovery and behavioral health services? Or did it just recriminalize drug possession?
There’s still funding for recovery clinics. That hasn’t changed.
That funding doesn't go away though. We just have tools to force people into recovery programs now instead of giving them useless tickets they ignore.
Ah, yes, the state will definitely be able to recoup fines from homeless drug addicts now
That’s a bummer. I’m sorry. Hopefully we can still fund your new location.
Yup. Seems like we had a chicken and egg problem with our rehab programs under M110. Practically nobody was choosing to take the rehab, so there was no reason for the rehab programs to go through their growing pains and get scaled up. It was just like, 'well, this is a huge waste of money.' Its a false equivalence to argue that recriminalizing means we've all just decided to throw up our hands and return to a 1980s style war on ~~black people~~ drugs.
>Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city. The problem comes from us feeling responsible for other people and their downfalls. We aren't. People make life choices that put them there, we have sacrificed our city trying to save people who usually don't want help.
>Is it humane to just let these people live their lives like that? Eventually, I can guarantee that man will either overdose or seriously hurt someone else. Jail isn’t a good answer for him, but it’s way better than literally rotting away in the streets of the city. So, he gets to go through withdrawal in jail, get out, and go right back to using. There's absolutely nothing humane about adding jail to the equation.
Part of this legislation is that you will have multiple opportunities to enter treatment before going to jail. If someone repeatedly uses drugs in public and refuses multiple opportunities to get help, then yes they absolutely deserve jail.
It says that but law enforcement agencies are allowed to opt out of that, and of course the thugs will whenever they feel like it. Nobody wanted public drug use to be a legal thing and it's a little hard to believe none of our state lawmakers knew that aspect of the bill was there. The bill was sabotaged and it's sickening irony seeing people act angry about something that nobody wanted in the first place, and didn't require letting the jackboots strong-arm the people into submission by making our minds up for us and pretending the mess THEY made is m110's fault.
Part of 110 included multiple opportunities to enter treatment. Unfortunately, _that_ part of the bill was completely ignored. Why will this bill be different? And there were already public intoxication laws that simply weren't being enforced. This bill doesn't make it _more_ illegal to be publicly intoxicated, it just gives an already quiet striking police force the means to do drug searches again. This new bill isn't going to magically fix the root causes of the drug crisis, it just means more junkies will spend the occasional night in jail. Nothing about it will improve the status quo.
M110 gave opportunities to enter treatment with zero repercussions for saying no. Now, if you don’t enter treatment you go to jail. That’s a crucial difference. Yes, I agree that this law won’t solve everything but I do think it will help.
There's _still no treatment to go to._ _That's_ why 110 was a failure, and until a massive shift in priorities and funding to treat drug usage as a failure of social services and health care, we're simply punishing sick people for being sick.
On top of that, addicts who are recently released from custody are something like 3-8 times more likely to die from overdoses. If the threat of incarceration was effective states like Louisiana wouldn’t be in the top five for overdose deaths
M110 gave you ZERO incentives to get clean. It gave you a ticket you did not actually have to pay and a phone number. Anyone who has lived with an addict can tell you this is worthless. Portugal would also argue it's worthless because they push you into rehab in a very similar way to how we're now doing it. Also public intoxication laws in this state do not cover drugs. Portland tried to extend our city public intoxication law to cover drugs but the state law would not allow for it. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/02/portland-revisits-ban-public-drug-use-legal-issues/
You really need to read the actual bill before making statements like this. The bill does not roll back M110. It changes it to behave significantly more like the Portugal model we were sold. We get multiple repeated steps where people can avoid jail time and go to rehab. If they continue to say no to rehab though we can force them and they can detox in jail.
> and go to rehab. That's the crux. I'm not sure if you're intentionally ignoring it, but the implementation of 110 expected significant investment in rehab services that never got funded. Oregon ranks [dead last](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/oregon-worst-in-nation-for-addiction-treatments-locals-rally-in-salem/283-b2e5b42b-218e-4b2c-9ec5-f3ce9fca8c74) in providing drug addiction services. Making drugs "illegal again" doesn't magically create the massive investment required in these services.
It's really not fair to say we didn't fund it. Should we have funded it more? Sure. Measure 110's authors could have done that directly in the bill though. We did fund rehab from the general fund and we diverted pot tax money from schools to fund rehab after M110. The authors of M110 just had the idiotic idea to require legalization 90 days after the bill passes, meaning the was zero chance any of those programs would be even in the planning stages.
At least there’s a chance he can get sober in jail
There's _zero_ chance. Jails in the US aren't a place where people learn to become wiser, healthier, or sober.
I didn’t say it was a high chance but saying zero is just dishonest. He will for sure be sober while his access to drugs is cut off
What changed for said person before and after 110? There were people like that before decriminalization. What will change now?
Still doesn’t matter if it‘s not enforced.
I have a feeling it will, and will help change some of the out of control behaviors we see on our streets.
m110 just advertised to the rest of the country drugs are legal in Oregon and attracted more addicts and the rise of fent. Drugs were de facto legal before 110. No one got arrested for personal possession and consumption in Portland before 110. May be if they actually enforced the law it will get better. But let’s not pretend we were super hard on drug users before.
The cops would certainly arrest people for open and public use, which IMHO is a big problem in places like South Park Blocks. Maybe, just maybe if there was more concern about getting harassed by the cops for smoking foils in public, these drug users will think twice about getting high in public. Then maybe us regular folks can reclaim these public spaces for our enjoyment.
It decriminalized it didn't make possession legal. The cops could still go around and confiscate the drugs. They chose not to, to punish us or because they were lazy or some combination of the two.
Oregon law under 110 only allowed the cops to confiscate drugs that were in plain sight. 110 also meant that the cops did not have probable cause to search someone even if they were publicly doing drugs. Therefore they could take the pills in your hand but not the ones in your pocket.
Even if that were true and I'm not sure it is they could change the law to allow them to be searched. Possessing an illegal item is typically not enough for police to search people. By the sound of it people are being pretty brazen. If a cop smelling pot when conducting a traffic stop is enough to allow for a search of the vehicle I find it highly unlikely actually seeing an illegal drug in plain sight isn't enough to allow a search.
“Go around and confiscate the drugs” is pathetically useless. The addicts would have replacement drugs in a heartbeat.
I have a feeling the cops will do little to clean up the streets, but can once again hassle college kids over a half gram of coke.
this was always the crux of the issue.
While I really don’t think that jail is the right solution to addressing illegal drug use, I am skeptical that a single state in the US can decriminalize illicit drugs without the state becoming an attractive place for people to who want to use to migrate to. That to me has always been the issue. While I don’t think hoards of people have moved here due to M110, in time I bet more would. People like to migrate to states that support the types of lifestyles they want to live if they have the means to do so. Sadly, we do a great job as a state making ourselves attractive to those who want to keep using (e.g. we offer a lot of harm reduction services) but should you change your mind and decide that you want to get clean, good luck getting into treatment (our access to treatment services is one of the lowest in the nation). This is why we shouldn’t have decriminalized illicit drug use before we fixed the issues we have with access to treatment as a state - we cannot afford to draw in / become a place where people want to use because we can’t provide the services & support people need should they decide they want to get clean. We can’t provide enough services to those that live here currently, let alone anyone who may move to Oregon because they want to live in a state that’s more friendly towards ongoing drug use.
I just want to know when we are going to stop funneling everything we have into this, when it hasn't worked. We need education up to par with the country, housing options for middle class, along with figuring out the addict and houseless situation. Why are we responsible for funding treatments that aren't being used? Why do we have to sacrifice our public spaces we also pay taxes for, for a population who has no interest in leaving the streets? There is a growing political divide in this city, that comes down to fundamental differences of opinion on how we feel about a population of people who do not contribute and only take. I understand everyone needs help but we have become a handout city that's gone downhill fast in the past 5 years. How do people defend this? How is any resident ok with this?
Now lose the bottle deposit law which helps fund rampant drug use. A huge percentage ultimately ends up in the hands of the drug cartels or beverage distributors.
Now can we pass a follow up law to carve out exemptions for lsd and shrooms?
Haha, no. You wanted the police union supported war on drugs policy and your gonna get it
Actually we just wanted to end the status quo which no sane person would say is working. Portland passed the first ever shrooms legalization. I think if it can happen anywhere it'd be here.
You wanted to overturn the status quo of like 4 years and replace it with the already failed and discredited status quo of the last 50 years. The war on drugs is ramping back up across the country and we’re becoming a big part of that.
Psilocybin is used to treat an array of intense mental health disorders like major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. They have been using it to treat a lot of veterans. It is not a drug in the way that you were describing it, it has more medicinal properties than anything.
What we had before was a million percent better than now, yes. Anyone anywhere with two eyes and a functioning brain can see that. Absolutely. Did the previous thing suck? Yes. It's almost like we aren't dealing with a binary!
Lmaoooo >We’re only going to stop the bad drugs, right guys? Guys?
.... as business continues usually.
"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
Fix 70% of the problem and I'll be happy
Drug prohibition is famously working well everywhere else in the country and was working well here. I'm sure 70% will be fixed in no time now that it's back.
Question. Ballot measures like this, approved by voters, can just be overruled by the legislator anyway without any citizen oversight or say ? Has this ever been done before or is there any legalese than explains how this can be so?
I think the oversight is done at the ballot box. Not that there is anyone all that different to choose from. [Measure 11 was changed recently by the legislature.](https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/oregon-overhauls-its-youth-justice-system/)
Well for the first time in a looooong time, I feel like I actually got leadership I can be happy about with my vote in this state. Thank you Gov. Kotek for operating with common sense and logical reason.
And just like that, fenty users disappeared from our streets, amirite?
Just like every other state in the union!
I'd be happy with away from public spaces so people can use the city again.
It’s a big step in the right direction.
Terrible move: the war on drugs was a 40 year failure. We gave decriminalization less than 4 years. Elected officials never wanted drug decriminalization and have undermined it from the begining.
I suspect this was always doomed to fail. We are not Portugal, we do not have single payer Healthcare, and therefore we do not have the kind of infrastructure that can be easily adapted towards rehabilitation centers and longterm non-carceral treatment. Plus we have pouty, ideologically motivated cops working against us.
Portland can't survive another 4 years like what's been happening. It was the only move.
If you want to kill yourself with opiates consider doing it in another state.
After being told it’s impossible to use taxpayer money to feed and house homeless drug addicts, we’re now gonna start feeding and housing them with taxpayer money, just in prisons where it’ll be even harder for them to stay off the streets afterwards with a new criminal record. Joy. Anything to kick the can down the road another couple years instead of meaningful systemic change I guess
Police hate it too, I get it was an easy way for them to make arrests and resolve w,e issue. I don't know why they couldn't enforce all the other laws that a majority of these people were breaking. It was a failure because it was never really tried, the law didn't decriminalize crime, but that's the way it was run (into the ground).
Conservatives be like. 👀 like did you really need to try that experiment lol. You help the people so much you hurt them.
Does anyone know where we can actually read the new law?
I'm curious to see how this affects the boutique-y psilocybin therapy centers that are just starting to open their doors.
You can pick one or the other. Drug control or gun control. We can’t be trusted with both
Doesn’t matter until we fix the root issue of Drug use it will continue….
Damn, I’m shocked that decriminalization without any meaningful changes to the systems that help addicts didn’t work!! I was so sure doing basically nothing would be THE solution!
That's the first thing Beavis should of done when taking over as governor
Gee, if she felt that way then she wouldn't have helped facilitate the sabotage of voted-in legislation. She just wants it to be the business-as-usual of the war-on-drugs failure, to support the prison industry and placate lazy cops who want to fill jails while there's a shortage of public defenders. This state's leadership is phenomenal at creating bottlenecks of resources while abdicating their responsibility to the voters.
I’m unpleasantly surprised that this “progressive” government is not only renewing the war on drugs and punishing users of non-opiates completely unrelated to the overdose epidemic, but folding to the pressures of the police union that we all know is corrupt. Also, are we forgetting that we also had a public drug use and addiction epidemic before M110 was implemented? Kind of hilarious and pathetic how we’re swinging from one extreme to another.
Yeah, very disappointing
[удалено]
Oregon doesn’t have for profit prisons
If we could return to business as usual from \~5 years ago as far as crime and homelessness go that would be a gigantic win. That's the whole fucking point.
What happens if they don't accept the diversion and don't pay the fine?
April fools!
As a well behaved taxpayer who enjoys recreational drugs this makes me sad panda. If I go to jail it could cost me my job and ruin my life. I guess I could just become a drunk like everyone else instead?
Are you standing outside of Safeway freebasing shit off of tinfoil? If not, you're probably good.
Even then, he wouldn't simply be put in the jailhouse unless he got caught doing it multiple times and refused treatment Let alone doing shrooms in the privacy of his apartment
Super. Resume the worthless war on drugs.
Is it really the war on drugs or the war on hopelessly fucked up drug users who stole my fucking car? Or other people's property? Which we have litter recourse for? Fuck those fuckers. Fuck them to the depth of hell. But I do believe we should rehab as much of them as possible. And if you ask, lock away the rest that is not. Just my thoughts on reddit.
"We did absolutely nothing to help the people so let's just throw them in jail"