Oregon pioneered a radical drug policy. Now it's reconsidering.

[JayDubya]

Oregon pioneered a radical drug policy. Now it's reconsidering.​

Oregon voters passed the most liberal drug law in the country in November 2020, decriminalizing possession for small amounts of hard drugs.

Under Ballot Measure 110, instead of arresting drug users, police now give them a citation and point them towards treatment. The law passed with 58% of the vote and also funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in cannabis tax revenue to fund new recovery programs.

But more than three years later, the drug crisis in Oregon – like many other places battling the fentanyl crisis – has gotten worse. And that's prompted a fierce political debate in Oregon about whether Measure 110 has succeeded or failed.

 

[JayDubya]

Gee, gotta wonder if it could possibly be related?

'That level of violence is terrifying': Mexican cartel targets tranquil Puget Sound city​

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...targets-tranquil-puget-sound-city/ar-BB1i4yIk

A Mexican super cartel brought its deadly drugs and violence to the tranquil and remote waterfront community of Port Orchard, a 90-minute ferry ride west of Seattle.

Here, the Kitsap Peninsula, billed as "the natural side of Puget Sound." attracts hikers, bikers, golfers and boaters — and members of a top U.S. target, the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación.

The cartel, known as CJNG, set up a meth conversion lab here years ago as part of a Western Washington drug cell that pummeled the region with millions of dollars worth of heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl-laced pills.

 

[Goldhedge]

Oregon pioneered a radical drug policy. Now it's reconsidering.​

Oregon voters passed the most liberal drug law in the country in November 2020, decriminalizing possession for small amounts of hard drugs.

Under Ballot Measure 110, instead of arresting drug users, police now give them a citation and point them towards treatment. The law passed with 58% of the vote and also funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in cannabis tax revenue to fund new recovery programs.

But more than three years later, the drug crisis in Oregon – like many other places battling the fentanyl crisis – has gotten worse. And that's prompted a fierce political debate in Oregon about whether Measure 110 has succeeded or failed.

If they were conservative, they would never have considered it.

Thinking vs Feeling.

 

[Cigarlover]

Gee, gotta wonder if it could possibly be related?

'That level of violence is terrifying': Mexican cartel targets tranquil Puget Sound city​

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...targets-tranquil-puget-sound-city/ar-BB1i4yIk

A Mexican super cartel brought its deadly drugs and violence to the tranquil and remote waterfront community of Port Orchard, a 90-minute ferry ride west of Seattle.

Here, the Kitsap Peninsula, billed as "the natural side of Puget Sound." attracts hikers, bikers, golfers and boaters — and members of a top U.S. target, the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación.

The cartel, known as CJNG, set up a meth conversion lab here years ago as part of a Western Washington drug cell that pummeled the region with millions of dollars worth of heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl-laced pills.

Send the IRS over to get them.

 

[searcher]

Portland isn't doing too well these days.

Oregon Leaders Declare Drug Emergency in Portland​

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/us/portland-fentanyl-emergency.html

 

[pmbug]

...
Under Ballot Measure 110, instead of arresting drug users, police now give them a citation and point them towards treatment. ...

...
The cartel, known as CJNG, set up a meth conversion lab here years ago as part of a Western Washington drug cell that pummeled the region with millions of dollars worth of heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl-laced pills.

~~~

I actually believe that drugs should be decriminalized and it's not he State's role to nanny folks. The State sees people as tax paying engines that they want to keep running, but if you believe in liberty, you have to be wiling to let Darwinism play out.

 

[<SLV>]

~~~

I actually believe that drugs should be decriminalized and it's not he State's role to nanny folks. The State sees people as tax paying engines that they want to keep running, but if you believe in liberty, you have to be wiling to let Darwinism play out.

Pure libertarianism is as much a fantasy as socialism. There is no such thing as self-destructive human behavior that only harms the individual committing it.

 

[pmbug]

Oregon is considering legislation that would recriminalize low-level drug possession, reversing a landmark reform that voters approved in 2020. Although critics of that ballot initiative, Measure 110, cite escalating drug-related deaths, decriminalization is not responsible for that trend.

Opioid overdose fatalities have been rising nationwide for more than two decades. That trend was accelerated by the emergence of illicit fentanyl as a heroin booster and substitute, a development that hit Western states after it was apparent in other parts of the country.

"Overdose mortality rates started climbing in [the] Northeast, South, and Midwest in 2014 as the percent of deaths related to fentanyl increased," RTI International epidemiologist Alex H. Kral and his colleagues noted at a conference in Salem, Oregon, last month. "Overdose mortality rates in Western states did not start rising until 2020, during COVID and a year after the introduction of fentanyl."

That lag explains why Oregon has seen a sharper rise in opioid-related deaths than most of the country since 2020. But so have California, Nevada, and Washington, neighboring states where drug possession remains a crime.
...

More:

Did decriminalization boost drug deaths in Oregon?

Recent research finds "no evidence" that it did, undermining a key claim by critics of that policy.

reason.com