Oregon's Trail 2 Drug Addiction Hell

Hey, wasn’t there a reason drug usage was criminalized & long before overkilling War on Drugs? Oregon thought better, but voters now seeing reality “want to undo its pioneering change as public use has become rampant.”

As the WSJ coverage noted: “Soon after Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs, Officer Jose Alvarez stopped arresting people for possession & began giving out tickets with the number for a rehab helpline.” He even stopped bothering to do that when it proved to be “a waste of time.” Three years later after the state’s decriminalization initiative known as Measure 110 passed by a 58% majority, many of those same enablers “have turned against it.” That’s because they’re seeing “people sprawled on sidewalks & using fentanyl with no fear of consequence … Business owners & local leaders are upset, but so are liberal voters who hoped decriminalization would lead to more people getting help.” Not so surprisingly, “few drug users [have been] taking advantage of new state-funded rehab programs.”

Stanford Prof Keith Humphreys says decriminalization wasn’t a crazy thing to do, but suggests it was foolishly implemented because advocates “misunderstood addiction.” He explained: "They really had the assumption that if you [remove the possibility of jail time users] would come rushing in” begging for treatment. But, he noted, “addiction is not like cancer where people crawl through broken glass to get” help. A new voter initiative being put on the ballot would recriminalize drug possession & presumably include a threat of significant fines and/or some jail time if a ticketed person refuses to participate in the rehab programs the state generously & less naively funds. If it passes, let’s hope the right balance is struck.

Davd Soul