Oregon is continuing to get national attention for Measure 110, which voters approved in November 2020. It decriminalized possession of previously illegal drugs. Now, though, the backlash against Measure 110 threatens to make Oregon a poster child for what not to do about drugs.
An article in the January 22, 2024 issue of The New Yorker describes the high hopes that accompanied the passage of Measure 110.
In November, 2020, Oregon launched a historic experiment: the Drug Decriminalization and Addiction Treatment Initiative, known as Measure 110. Approved by fifty-eight per cent of voters, it made Oregon the first state to decriminalize possessing small amounts of illicit drugs. It also funnelled hundreds of millions of cannabis-tax dollars toward addiction treatment, housing, peer support, and harm reduction.
A citizen panel that included people with “lived experience”—histories of substance use—would decide how the money was spent. Programs in Black, Native, and other “historically underserved” communities would be prioritized. The law’s overarching goal, according to Tera Hurst, the director of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, was to force “a shift in attitude toward people who use drugs and how we treat them.”
The article notes attempts to either repeal or drastically revamp Measure 110.
Throughout 2022 and 2023, there seemed to be a new op-ed or county resolution each week calling for Measure 110 to be repealed. “Did Measure 110 take away ‘rock bottom’? Oregon cops seem to think so,” KGW News proclaimed. It did not escape notice that almost no one used the hotline number that police were supposed to give drug users.
In its first fifteen months, there were only a hundred and nineteen callers, at a cost that worked out to more than seven thousand dollars per conversation. A report by Oregon’s secretary of state dryly noted, “It is unclear if the M110-specific hotline provides the best value.”
Legislators came under pressure to either reform the law or dismantle it. A group bankrolled by Phil Knight, the Nike co-founder, and by Tim Boyle, the C.E.O. of Columbia Sportswear, filed paperwork to gather signatures for a partial repeal. Max Williams, a former Republican legislator and corrections official who helps lead the effort, told me, “I don’t think it should ever be the policy of a state to accept that people have a legitimate choice to use lethal drugs.”
In Portland, he said, “we’ve got an exodus of capital, a cratering out of the central city.” Last June, the state recriminalized minor possession of fentanyl. Governor Tina Kotek, who had remained largely silent on Measure 110, recommended recriminalizing most drug possession and public use.
It seems clear that some sort of legislation to reform Measure 110 will be introduced in the short 35-day legislative session that begins in early February.
And it will probably pass, so long as the bill(s) aren't as extreme as the repeal Republicans want, nor as minimal as the "let Measure 110 stay mostly as is" approach the Drug Policy Alliance wants.
An opinion piece by Randy Stapilus in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, "Measure 110 in need of fixes rather than repeal," strikes a nice balance between the haters and lovers of Measure 110. Here's an excerpt:
For all the talk about repealing Measure 110, most legislative activity now seems to involve additions and fixes for its problems rather than changing the core direction, which is what approval of Measure 110 by voters signals the public wants.
However, the will of voters can and should be met with changes on how to execute that new direction. The largest failure with Measure 110, so far, has been implementation: Prevention and treatment efforts have been slow, along with measures to ban activity, such as the public use of drugs, to mirror state law on alcohol and marijuana.
Measure 110 has suffered from its timeline – changing enforceable drug laws in just 13 weeks between the election and the law change and long before treatment and other efforts could be set up – along with several gaps in the law.
Many early complaints about the measure concerned the slow expansion of treatment efforts. More recently, however, those projects have expanded. The 2021 Senate Bill 755 set up Behavioral Health Resource Networks, described as “an entity or group of entities working together to provide comprehensive, community-based services and supports to people with substance use disorders or harmful substance use.” This took time. The state set up a network in each county and tribal area before using grant funds to cover the cost of services to individuals.
The measure probably was overly comprehensive and uniform: Different drugs may call for different responses. Approaches to dealing with opioids (many of which are legal in some cases) is a different proposition than going after methamphetamines or cocaine. Legislation could address the differences.
Even more important is the absence in 110 of serious leverage to pressure – even force – drug users away from bad behavior and into treatment or some other consequence. What might that leverage look like? One option might involve building on the drug courts, active in Oregon as in many other states for many years by giving public officials – and maybe judges – broad authority to compel people to comply with recovery efforts.
Policymakers can consider as well that much of Oregon’s law relating to drugs, establishing crimes and penalties relating to manufacture and trafficking, remains in force and continues to be a powerful tool.
In October a large Oregon delegation visited Portugal, which two decades ago moved from a crimalized-based to a health service approach to drug use, to pick up lessons from the experience. Portugal seems to have little interest in reversing its course.
One of the participants, Janie Gullickson, the executive director of the Portland-based Mental Health and Addiction Association, remarked that, “It took Portugal eight years to see results they were hoping to see from their drastic change from a criminal approach to addiction to a health care approach. So it’s going to take time, innovation and collaboration. We’re year three, right?”
Elected officials seldom are wise simply to smack down a clearly expressed will of the voters. Voters do tend to appreciate, though, efforts to make their will work better.
Recent Comments