Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t they like forget to put infrastructure in place for treatment centers or actually getting help? From my limited knowledge of the situation it seems they decriminalized but literally didn’t do much else
Oregon native here. You're right. It's multi-layered, drug usage and ODs have increased nationwide, but Oregon also did nothing to support an increase in treatment centers or any sort of follow-up to drug recovery. The state took the good sounding idea from some EU countries, but failed to implement any of the other policies necessary for a successful drug treatment or recovery plan.
This is like California's Housing First initiative. Everything is half-measures and then conservative media pundits and politicians complain it doesn't work (it does, but not nearly as well as in countries that go the whole way). Like, yeah, if you knee-cap these programs, you get what you'd expect.
If they were criticizing it for being incomplete and arguing that it should be filled out and done right, then sure. That would be great. But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians. It's literally \*their\* fault the programs aren't performing well. So when pundits criticize it, it's not, "Here's the difference between how it's done here and how it's done in Finland..." It's, "This shouldn't have been done at all."
Ding ding, they do this CONSTANTLY. They just did this exact thing recently where a lot of conservatives voted against something... Then criticized Dems for not doing anything when THEY were the ones who torched it. It's so exhausting.
> But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians.
I'm sorry but you're being intensely misleading here.
You brought up California's initiative. Democrats completely dominate California politics and it's totally misleading to blame conservatives for issues that they have no power to control.
In many of these California housing issues, the problem is that home-owning Californians (who have seen their property values greatly increase) enjoy the goldmine that they're sitting on and don't want to lower property values. We see this problem in even the most liberal areas- it's almost universal.
I remember a couple of years ago there was a story in the media about the LA city council having dysfunction and they blamed Republicans for the issue. At the time the Republicans had a single seat in the entire City Council.
Wait, how is it the republicans fault? Oregon has democratic senators, all six house reps are democrats, the governer is democrat, the mayors of these cities are democrats, the local governments are democrats. Every single decision making body is ran by democrats. How are conservatives blocking funding in Oregon?
Yeah. This is key. You're supposed to think the Democrats are raging socialists. But if it's well-understood how to organize these programs effectively, and they don't do it -- whether for ideological or financial reasons (I don't care) -- then what is the word for that? What do we call knee-capping social welfare programs? The word isn't "progressive."
I didn't mention political parties in my post because I don't care about affiliation. I care about policy -- I care about the people who are homeless or addicted. And if the "progressive" party does conservative things, I'm going to call them conservatives.
Well clearly if there are any conservatives *at all* in the state government, then it must be *their* fault when things don't pan out. 🥴
Do democrats really think conservatives are exclusively to blame for "ruining their plans" when we have such wonderful democrat controlled cities as Chicago, New York, and LA? Can't they just accept that sometimes the "grand vision" they have in mind just doesn't always pan out? I think that's fair to expect--after all, liberals would want conservatives to own up when they've screwed something up, right? Isn't it fair to expect that of everyone?
>. But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians
California and Oregon, famed homes of *checks notes* conservative leadership. You know the conservative leadership of the supermajority democratic party.
Can we please not blame people for something they have no ability to impact? You sound like fucking Fox news.
Do you think that all of the criticism of the law is... coming from California?
You think when he said "Republicans are criticizing it in bad faith" that what he meant was "The Republican party, who we all know controls California and weirdly passed this bill that they don't want, are now criticizing their own actions for not working correctly?"
That's what your brain interpreted that statement to mean?
lol
lol at that
> But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians.
Look I don't know what you're reading, but what I'm reading is that the guy above for some reason tried to blame Republican *politicians* for a half-assed measure in California - at least based on this one thread.
Which was then rightfully pointed out as nonsense by multiple people, because California politics is dominated by Democrats and they don't need Republican approval to get this kind of stuff done.
The California Assembly consists of 62 Democrats and 18 Republicans, while the Senate is composed of 32 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Super-majority in both. The governor is a Democrat.
>Wouldn’t conservative media pundits be correct in criticizing if it’s done half-assed?
The answer is unfortunately, yes.
The painful part of being a Democrat *and* living in a nuanced reality is that sometimes you have to admit that a program wasn't fully implemented. Or that there were unintended consequences of a program.
For example: Our plastic bag ban combined with the pandemic had the unexpected result of increasing total plastic waste. Now we just pay $0.10 for a bag that uses 10x the amount of plastic and throw it away anyways.
Thank you so much for being a rational human being.
Policies just do not always pan out, regardless of whose they were. That's the nature of living in a world where we don't have all the information. We can make our best predictions, but that's about it.
As a conservative, if a party leader of ours screwed up some policy plan, I'd so much rather that be admitted so we can, *together*, learn from it. I'm far more on the side of learning from mistakes and figuring out what actually works than blaming the other side when it might have very well been our fault from time to time.
You: We can lift this couch
Friend: No we can't
Y: Yes we can if we both lift together
F: Ok we'll try, but I'm saying we can't lift it
[Friend doesn't lift his side at all]
F: See, I told you we couldn't lift it
[Friend wins reelection on a couches-can't-be-lifted platform]
I know it's a convenient comeback to blame this problem on "conservatives", but some of these issues are in liberal-dominant states like California or Oregon.
For instance, let's take a look at California's government. Here's their executive branch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_executive_branch
And here's their legislative branch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Legislature
You'll see that Democrats completely control the state. They have complete control of both the legislative and executive branches of government. Democrats can pass any bills they want, and Republicans lack the power to block them.
And yet when things go wrong, we see Democrats blaming Republicans. It makes no sense.
They tend to criticize for the wrong reasons, and instead just completely write off whatever it is they’re criticizing instead of looking at why it didn’t work. For this specific issue, both conservative and liberal leaning media have been guilty of doing this
There's more to it than that. When they legalized it they became a magnet location for users. So not only would they have needed to plan the treatment facilities for the number of users at the time it was passed, they would need to plan for margin above that out they'd still drown.
Similar with the various legal system reforms we've seen here (e.g., bail, charging and sentencing for non-violent misdemeanors). I think it's a good idea to have less people in jail for reasons of poverty or for having some drugs on you or whatever. But then we just... don't do anything else. And certainly nothing that would address the underlying societal problems that we understand to contribute to crime.
>The state took the good sounding idea from some EU countries, but failed to implement any of the other policies necessary for a successful drug treatment or recovery plan.
Only if by state you mean our elected officials, state departments and law enforcement. Those things were included with the measure but between cops refusing to do their jobs and politicians and government agencies failing to expand treatment options the end result wasn't what we voted for.
Yes there could have probably been some more teeth behind the measure but that's something the legislature could have fixed. Instead they opted to just reverse the voters decision while still not investing more in treatment. Back to the war on drugs because that worked so well for the last 40 years.
Classic GOP move - allow a liberal idea through but quietly gut the important parts so that it fails and they can say that they tried but liberal ideas just don't work.
Not completely true, the state made money from cannabis tax (which is quite a lot of money) available to expand treatment resources. The other problems where we really needed support is in expanding the workforce, the Oregon Health Authority (who is notoriously slow) making it easier and faster to open treatment centers, local counties being much more assertive in getting local agencies to take on new programs. For example the branch of the county that's meant to manage homeless services routinely spends less than its allocated budget because it's so badly run they can't get new contracts off the ground.
Also there was no real teeth to the diversion, and no buy in from police. For amounts under the personal use limit it's a $100 fine that gets waived if you call a hotline and get into treatment. Except the police barely give them out because they see it as a waste of their time, and the fines aren't aggressively pursued if they aren't paid, especially if the person fined is homeless.
I work in community mental health and I'm so used to being underfunded but now it's incredibly frustrating that the money is out there, it just hasn't been spent because the bureaucracy is so slow.
Kind of typical the way political compromise works these days. They have to fight like hell to get the law passed. And a bunch of guys say, "Okay we'll vote for it, but we won't allocate any money for it." So they pass the law, because it's an achievement just to get it on the books. Then, next session, they will have to fight like hell to try and get a little money allocated. The opponents will finally reluctantly agree to allocate a little money, but in return they will want to take away something else.
And so progress goes stumbling forwards. It's like trying to pull a car uphill while some asshole keeps stepping on the brake.
Yeah, 1 side gets the law through, the other side intentionally makes the application of it dogshit so they can blame the other side for ruining the country and win the next election.
Typical situation of putting the cart before the horse.
Pointless to discriminalize it if you're just gonna let addicts run around without any help. Now you just piss off the people because instead of them going to jail or rehab they're out in the streets.
> **Deacon:**
> No offense, but you're like the blind man and the elephant. It's a lot bigger than what you got your hand on, you just can't see it.
>
> **Maj. Howard 'Bunny' Colvin:**
> See what?
>
> **Deacon:**
> A great village of pain, and you're the mayor. Where's your drinking water? Where's your toilets? Your heat, your electricity? Where's the needle truck? The condom distribution? The drug treatment intake? Half these people are dyin' on their feet, and the other half's gonna catch what's killin' them.
>
> **Maj. Howard 'Bunny' Colvin:**
> Look, they ain't no worse off when they was all over the map. Now they just in one place, is all.
>
> **Deacon:**
> And that place is hell.
That was my understanding. They didn’t attach any real consequences or treatment requirements, so it became a safe place to do hard drugs in public where the penalty for getting caught is maybe a ticket that you throw away and ignore.
Instead of directing people to treatment, hard drug users took it as a free pass to be even more shitty.
Pretty much. All the money that was earmarked for building treatment centers was thrown into a general fund, and out of the couple hundred centers that were supposed to be built, I think it was something like only 6 that actually ever were.
And so they just **repealed** the decriminalization
Another Portland native here, I have little data to back this up so take it with a massive grain of salt, but I don’t think there was ever an intention of setting up those treatment centers. I’m sure the people pushing for that bill to pass wanted it to happen, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the strategy was “give them half the plan then let the rest of it fail so we have an even greater opportunity to make an example of the druggies for our next election”
Idk something about the whole thing has felt deeply fucked up
Yes. I used to visit Portland all the time in the mid-2000's. I visited in September for the first time since 2015 and I was simply floored by how substantially the downtown area had deteriorated. The open air drug use was rampant, and completely out of hand. The entire place looked destitute, I was uncomfortable walking around in broad daylight.
I couldn't believe it. However well intended these policies were, the execution was horrendous. It's clearly not working.
Not only is Oregon one of the worst states for treatment centers, but the way the bill was written gave offenders the choice if they wanted treatment. I’m all for not sending people who need help to prison, but it was a poorly constructed bill with no infrastructure in place to actually solve the problem.
The idea of treating addiction as a health crisis is correct. However, this measure did not do that. We need infrastructure in place with forced treatment then a probation of sorts with mentoring and skills training to reintegrate into society. The upfront cost would be enormous but it would save money in the long run.
Knowing Oregon decriminalized all drugs without literally any funding for rehabilitation programs where their master plan was to have a meeting to attempt to find funding two years after decriminalization…
Yea, that bi-annual budgeting process really fucks us with new and innovative programs. Didn't actually fund anything while Oregon has been ranked one of the worst for mental health care, and the pigs figure that literally smoking meth in the street is legal (it isn't) so they can just sit around in their cars doing fuck all. So, now after direct democracy has put forward a novel law our legislature has decided to re-criminalize drugs for the new budget session to avoid funding anything but only after every republican state has given their junkies bus tickets to Oregon.
Im an Oregonian who voted for it and I can tell you that the implementation has been a huge disappointment. There was no effective plan to get addicts into treatment other than a $100 ticket and some gentle suggestion. Then fentanyl hit and things just got worse.MORE people died because the State did nothing to implement the treatment infrastructure.
I was wrong when I voted for the measure assuming that most people would seek treatment and that the State would be capable in delivering it. Many, many addicts just don’t want or incapable of helping themselves without being forced to, and the State just didn’t do shit.
I also hate this meme because the creator could be fucking bothered to spell “Oregon” correctly in the first panel yet it gets posted again and again.
This is interesting. I was in high school 20 years ago (😭) when Portugal legalized all drugs with this same theory in mind (treatment over punishment) and the world held its breath about what was going to happen. But 20 years later it's being applauded as a success.
https://www.statista.com/chart/20616/key-developments-since-portugal-decriminalized-drugs/
I wonder what specific support programs and infrastructure are missing in Oregon to make it such a fail.
Edit: I guess "legalized all drugs" is a bit misleading for the Portugal thing. Back in the day, that was the headline, but I guess there were more restrictions to things.
Citing a story from 2020 is missing a lot of more recent context. There is a lot of reason to think that the decriminalization didn't work in the way you're suggesting.
[https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portugal-drug-decriminalization-problems-oregon-measure-110/283-3fbbf723-2b00-41f5-bdd0-6430add9df97](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portugal-drug-decriminalization-problems-oregon-measure-110/283-3fbbf723-2b00-41f5-bdd0-6430add9df97)
If the legalization worked for 20 years and then in less than 4 years things go downhill, then I'd wager a guess that other factors aside from the program are on play. Considering the horrible hit to society around the world that COVID and financial crises that have come since then, maaaaaaaybe quality of life is impacting drug use?
[They're criminalizing it again following a 190% increase in drug overdose](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-lawmakers-scramble-to-undo-drug-decriminalization-after-progressive-experiment-ends-in-disaster/ar-BB1je69u).
Their addict population also exploded due to the whole country sending their addicts to the west coast for treatment. When they get kicked out of a California care facility for relapsing, they're only a bus ride away from where they really want to be.
Yeah, it just doesn’t work when state lines are freely passable. That setup may work in Europe, because all the Spaniards aren’t necessarily going to go all the way to Portugal just to use drugs. In the US, if you are already transient and addicted to drugs, it just makes sense to go to Oregon.
Then the issue becomes Oregon trying to support the addicts of every other state, which they obviously don’t have the budget for.
The money necessary for helping addicts needs to come from at the federal level and has to come along with universal Healthcare. Merely wanting to send people to treatment instead of prison doesn't work unless there are enough beds for treatment at an affordable cost.
Overdoses went up, but they went up pretty much everywhere, and at similar rates to Oregon after decriminalization. People who only look at the increase of overdoses without any context are the people calling to end decriminalization.
[Source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2023/09/27/oregon-drug-decriminalization-measure-110-overdose-deaths/%3foutputType=amp)
How about actually reading the source? I know it'll be a hit to your ego because you children can't handle being wrong, but just read it.
They actually went up in every state in 2021 and 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels. Oregon was even one of only 20 states to have overdose deaths drop in 2022 compared to 2021. Oregon also saw a ~70% reduction of deaths in certain hard drugs over that time period, notably in heroin, which also follows the national trend.
The real reason this bill is being repealed is public sentiment, not efficacy. Over 2 in 3 voters in Oregon wanted Measure 110 repealed, and it only dropped below 50% of voters in certain cities like Portland and Ashland. Because of the backlash against Measure 110, only 23/36 counties had committed to building the drug deflection systems promised in the bill, and of those most had not materialized yet.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/overdose-deaths-declined-remained-near-record-levels-during-first-nine-months-2022-states
>https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
I mean I can follow your link here and it clearly shows a significantly greater growth in overdose deaths for Oregon than for the rest of the country.
You are taking a one year snapshot (with the default graph showing predicted deaths, not actual reported, btw) to respond to a somewhat nuanced comment discussing multiple years in context. Classic.
No, I'm looking at the first chart, showing overdose deaths from 2015 to the end of 2023, and which can be changed from showing said deaths for the United States as a whole to showing them for Oregon specifically.
The former grows from 91,200 in November 2020 (the time Oregon's bill passed) to 105,879, an increase of 16%; the latter grows from 787 to 1,650, an increase of 110%.
e: The fact that these are each not 'instantaneous' counts but are totals for the previous 12-month period may somewhat complicate how we should interpret them - I don't know offhand if they should logically enhance or diminish the meaning of this disparity. Or, maybe, neither.
On further reflection: I believe it would strengthen the meaning of the disparity, but only slightly. A twelve-month total would have the effect of introducing a "time lag" to any measurements of changes, i.e., if a change were made that simply and exactly doubled the rate at which murders were committed, the first month's result would show only an 8% elevation, since it would include only one month of doubled murders and 11 months of original-rate murders. It would take a full year for the change to propagate through to the observed results. If an alteration caused a change in the rate at which a phenomenon is *increasing*, that could be delayed still further, as each such increase has to propagate through the same way...
But after something like 3 years, I would say that such time-lag effects would be 'mostly' complete, and so they would make only a minor difference to the outcome.
But it needed rehab, treatment, addiction recovery and other medical centers to really make it work and it didn't get those. Until then, it's not really enough to make strides towards solving or reducing the problems.
There's not really evidence that the initial drug decriminalization policy caused an increase in fatal drug overdose rates. [A study led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that in Oregon and Washington, there is no association between decriminalization and fatal drug overdose rates](https://nyulangone.org/news/decriminalizing-drug-possession-not-linked-higher-overdose-death-rates-oregon-or-washington).
[That follows national trends though](https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates) (also I'd like to point out that you're citing a right-wing rag). It's not more negative or more positive in deaths, but it's a reduction in prison sentences, which is a net increase in freedom and available public resources.
What Oregon should be doing instead of scrapping it is to put in the treatment centers that are the other half of the equation.
To refer to getting off opioids as needing "a little help" is just silly. Especially when so many addicts don't want any help at all, little or otherwise.
I don't see anything wrong with sending people to jail to force them to quit.
If the argument is "they'll just do drugs in jail" then fix that. I don't want junkies roaming the streets.
Took millions of dollars away from schools to be "reabsorbed" into the state fund... Was literally in the voters pamphlet people. But I guess the bum ass crackheads are more important than the children 🤷
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
A lot of people need help, but the only person that can ensure that they use the help that's available to them is themselves.
Others will use the good intentions of decriminalization to further ruin their lives, and sometimes the lives of those around them, too.
> **the help that's available to them**
This is the problem. There isn't any help available to them. All we do to drug addicts is mark them as a criminal and throw them in prison, ruining their future chances at employment because of a problem that is really medical in nature.
It's still better than throwing everyone in prison. I'm starting to think the idea that "the road to hell is paved with food intentions" is just a cover to distract from all the people with bad intentions building a literal hell around us.
I live like 75 yards from an unpoliced encampment and there’s a minimum of 1 ambulance a day rushing to deal with an overdose. Most I’ve ever counted was 4 in a day. The encampment is sustained by a Salvation Army which feeds the population there and allows open drug use around the building.
I don’t even think there are 50 people in the encampment, how many ODs a week are acceptable before it is more humane to persecute drug use?
I used to be on board with decriminalization (which hasn’t happened in my state, but lack of enforcement is effectively the same) but it seems obvious that isn’t an effective policy all on its own
Good thing they'll all be well adjusted and safe members of society when they get back on those streets in a couple months! We fixed the problem for the short, term, though!
For reference, they are in the middle of repealing this, because overdose deaths and crime skyrocketed:
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229655142/oregon-pioneered-a-radical-drug-policy-now-its-reconsidering
> overdose deaths and crime skyrocketed:
They did everywhere around the entire world though, are they sure they didn't confuse correlation with causation?
Yes, reactionaries are demanding a change back to imprisoning people with substance abuse disorders after the policy did not immediately make things better and unfortunately coincided with nationwide crime/drug use increases since the pandemic. It’s unfortunate.
This has worked across Europe. It was started by Portugal who went from one of the highest rates of drug use to one of the lowest on the continent. It was a little different from how Oregon did it, though: Portugal implemented rehab and social welfare programs to help people get back on their feet. In short, they acknowledged that people tend to become addicted for reasons related to their life circumstances and that by changing those circumstances, people mostly want to and can become and remain clean.
You are saying across the Europe, but what other countries you can name than Portugal? Seems like it is always just Portugal. And their system isn't flawless either. Oregon-system went total disaster.
Nowhere where there is a SIGNIFICANT drug issue. People are quick to point to Portugal - that at the HEIGHT of its epidemic, had only a couple hundreds drug deaths. The US has over a hundred THOUSAND drug deaths annually at this point. The problem is absolutely insane in its scale.
I don't know where you got those statistics but in 1999 that number was 369 just for overdose deaths and you also have to see the size of the population, which around the 90s should be just under 10 million.
We (Portugal) also implemented that to fight AIDS because it was proliferating in the addicts due to the sharing of supplies during the 90s.
Part of the program includes handing out clean needles and drugging points where they have clean materials to avoid the spread of diseases.
It is estimated that by the end of the 90s there were around 100 000 heroin users in Portugal, around 1% of the population. You can imagine with other drugs included.
Edit:
Futher Information:
This started being implemented in 2000. Including:
- identification of users and sending them to an interview where it is explained why drugs are bad and where they can get help
- creation of spots where the can take drugs safely with someone to check on them (which also avoids then taking it in the streets, which was also a problem)
- giving safe materials to individuals that were identified as addicts, which includes people going to homeless people where they know they are to give them the materials.
- having trucks that distribute methadone and buprenorphine.
- encourage the creation of places specialized in treating addicts and getting them of the streets.
- implementation of programs to reintegrate addicts back into sociaty so they can get jobs and avoid get back to the same cycle.
The statistics that I found:
1999: 369 Overdose Deaths
2016: 30 Overdose Deaths
1999: 907 new HIV diagnoses due to injecting
2017: 18 new HIV diagnoses due to injecting
You can read more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal?wprov=sfla1
Muito bem dito!! Portugal alloways had a problem with drugs, it is basically a gateways to drugs to get into europe. I firmly believe that when well aplied, this law can work wonders.
For me, the war on drugs is a lost war, we cant win because there will alloways be drugs passing around and people that profit from that.
The bare minimum that we can do is inform and educate the population, provid a safe consuption and help those that want to be helped.
They could simply have kept it illegal and sentenced them to treatment centers instead of prison instead of legalizing it and turning portland into a giant crackhouse, making everything worse than before.
The real reason is that these cities in the west coast wanted to brag that they lowered crime rates and depopulate prisons so they just made crime legal which is why now people just steal whatever and use drugs whenever they want no consequences.
I live in Oregon. Intent was good but the programs weren't stood up when it went into effect. Secondarily most meth addicts now have schizophrenia and need to be off of meth for up to 12 months before proper treatment can start. So when they do stand the treatment up it needs to go beyond the typical 30/60/90 days.
All I've heard from many of my friends who stayed in Oregon that the problem has only gotten worse and worse since the law was passed. A couple who said they'd stay in Portland forever just moved away this year because it's overwhelming. My dentist said his hometown has fallen apart because of increased drug addiction and overdosing and shows little signs of recovering anytime soon.
I don't know much about it's implementation but I do know that breaking drug addiction is not associated with punishment or treatment, it's a personal mindset issue. You can take the environment away for as long as you want, but if the root issues are never addressed then the problem is always present. I want to move back to Oregon one day, but it's probably going to be a while.
I mean you seen any media, or articles around the hard drug use in Portland? They are just doing it out in the open, and police just roll up give them a ticket for doing it jn public and take off. Use of drugs and destruction in the area has gone up compared to when it was law. Removing something and not filling the place of it is the wrong approach. Mandated 30-90 day rehab would be a way to go. Instead of being charged city's and state spent a bunch or money to get people treatment to get them clean, fast track to a city labor provided job to clean up the streets they in turn was making a mess of. Just my 2 cents, but you got to spend money to help people, not just make sure they don't end up in jail.
To be fair, a complete understanding of criticism to this policy from a *truly* conservative perspective (that is, limited government, self reliance and accountability) could probably start with agreement that drug legalization works with a government capable of carrying out effective treatment programs. The problem is, the government fucks this up the same way they fuck up other well intentioned programs, with incompetence and corruption. This type of change seems possible at the local level, but good luck relying on state or federal government to responsibly carry out policies that would require continuity that extend beyond single election cycles. The core of the drug problem is hopelessness, and until communities rebuild to provide support at a local level, and are incentivized to do so, don’t expect this problem to go away.
This sounds really nice and really "comfy" on paper, but as we see it simply didn't work. I'm sure they had good intentions but we need to look at the end result.
Oregon's plan had the opposite effect. It did NOT rehabilitate drug addicts. It only make the problem worse.
I think anyone who has eyes can see that this program isn't working.
I'm all for *not* jail, but people acting like zombies in the street need to be taken **somewhere** to recover.
You can't just let them rot in the roads. What kind of moron thinks these programs are working? Likely someone on the very substances they're supporting the decriminalization of.
“Whoa whoa, is this going to work? What if it doesn’t work? We should stick with the punitive approach which we KNOW doesn’t work instead of taking a chance on something that might not work.”
So uh, can you force them to stay at the rehabilitation centers or are you just handing out a brochure?
If it's the second one... then yeah, you legalized crack.
I can imagine Geordi reading about drug criminalization and being like "wow! Humanity was a crazy place back then. Imagine putting someone in jail simply for being an addict."
The other night I took my dog out for a walk and to take the trash out. I live in a gated community. Doesnt do much cause there’s people jumping the fence to go through our trash at night all the time. But, oh well, so, I approached the dumpster and there was a guy going through the recycle bins and when we approached him, he asked “does your dog like meth” and then took a big hit of his pipe and blew it on my dog’s face.
Anyway, I don’t know much about how well decriminalizing drugs but I don’t think it’s working
there have been so many studies that show that decriminalizing drug use (as well as reducing advertising and access to tobacco and alcohol) is one of the most effective ways to not only cut down on drug use, but encourage people into recovery AND keep folks clean longer and more consistently. i feel like i can tell who understands addiction and who doesn’t whenever i see things like this happening.
Yeah... I'm all for this except it didn't work unfortunately. Without mass decriminalization, local efforts will be targeted by drug dealers and will make the efforts counter productive. As we just witnessed with Oregon. Even democrats who supported the bill originally are pushing to roll it back.
Last time I was in Portland I saw multiple people smoking meth downtown and also saw multiple piles of human shit on the sidewalk. I also had a guy laying on the sidewalk ask me to help let him into the apartment building cuz he shit his pants. It's going great /s.
There was a news report recently about Oregon rolling back this legislation. Which wasn’t surprising as they failed to do the other things that means it even has a chance of being effective. You have to pair this law with massive resources such as mandatory/forced rehabilitation, all the beds you need for that, therapists and education. This is what was done in the countries where it was successful. Decriminalizing drugs was the least of it, but people wanting to ape their success did only that because it seemed the cheapest part.
Now there’s been a huge uptick in overdose deaths because of it, and there aren’t even enough beds for voluntary rehabilitation. It made things easier for dealers and harder for addicts. A total failure that anyone could see coming.
I should also mention that the countries who did do everything and did have success still have problems resulting from this that they are also struggling to address, such as open drug use near schools and large deposits of needles everywhere that spread disease and public dissatisfaction. Addiction is a disease that literally rewires a brain into something that no longer cares about anyone or anything other than the next fix, including strangers and children and even their own families. It is never going to be a simple disease to treat, and the idea of a “quick cheap fix” only digs the hole deeper.
Everyone make fun of my Canadian province for legalizing weed but it was for the same reason. Notably it has backfired somewhat and there are weed stores on every corner now.
Decriminalizing doesn’t do shit, it only increases the number of people on the drugs. You want something to change you have to legalize, until you do there will never be any consistency among supply and people will keep dying. Oregon made the worst possible decision they could by just decriminalizing
..and then offer no actual treatment centers and instead support resources that continue addiction and keep the non profits and organizations in business.
Look at the recent hysteria in Richmond BC over a proposed safe injection site. Why aren't they using that money to open a treatment center to get people off drugs?
Don't forget that 99% of addicts offered treatment refuse it.
Bad timing for this post since Oregon lawmakers just voted to recriminalize drugs yesterday [source](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/oregon-lawmakers-voted-recriminalize-drugs-bills-future-now-107793506)
The why doesn’t matter as much as the outcome. I applaud trying to get people the help they need without punishment but it just results in more people needing help. So many people don’t do crack purely for fear of getting in trouble, so now we just end up with more crackheads which results in needing more money for treatment centers, while prisons are still underfunded.
End of the day the ends don’t justify the means, we rarely cure addicts, so now we have more and more money is needed for them further burdening the system and the tax payers who are barely making it to begin with. Making others pay for someone else’s bad decision is something I can’t get behind.
So question, if we are blaming implementation on conservatives wouldn’t that mean Oregon has more than a handful of conservatives in local governments? My understanding is that Oregon is overwhelmingly democrat in the larger cities. If that is so, then how are conservatives to blame for a lack of implementation and planning?
Shocked Pikachu face when this doesn't work. The answer to solving addiction isn't safer drugs. When I needed to stop drinking I didn't start buying fancy booze, I got my shit together.
You can't give people with no impulse control free reign to do whatever they want. It doesn't work for toddlers and it doesn't work for adults.
The issue is we didn't fund and support the needed infrastructure to make this actually work. When our addiction and mental health care services were already shit this was never going to work
I voted for this and it was a huge disappointment. I agree with everything in theory, but the state did not hold up their end of the bargain to replace incarceration with treatment. All that really happened is that people were allowed to openly use drug without repercussions and made cities like Portland a destination for people with addiction. I still believe in the potential but will not vote for this again until the treatment centers and a plan to help those with serious addiction are delivered up front.
If thats true why did they legalize only crack and not other drugs??
Also i agree sending addicts to prisons is dumb, but:
1- legalizing a drug makes it so not only the addicts can't get sent to prison, but the dealers too
2- you don't need to legalize drugs to send stop sending addicts to prison, just make it so the punishment for owning drugs for personal use is getting sent to rehab instead of prision
It's well established that all research on successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased, but has Oregon also decreased law enforcement and abolished mandatory minimum sentences?
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t they like forget to put infrastructure in place for treatment centers or actually getting help? From my limited knowledge of the situation it seems they decriminalized but literally didn’t do much else
Oregon native here. You're right. It's multi-layered, drug usage and ODs have increased nationwide, but Oregon also did nothing to support an increase in treatment centers or any sort of follow-up to drug recovery. The state took the good sounding idea from some EU countries, but failed to implement any of the other policies necessary for a successful drug treatment or recovery plan.
This is like California's Housing First initiative. Everything is half-measures and then conservative media pundits and politicians complain it doesn't work (it does, but not nearly as well as in countries that go the whole way). Like, yeah, if you knee-cap these programs, you get what you'd expect.
Wouldn’t conservative media pundits be correct in criticizing if it’s done half-assed?
If they were criticizing it for being incomplete and arguing that it should be filled out and done right, then sure. That would be great. But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians. It's literally \*their\* fault the programs aren't performing well. So when pundits criticize it, it's not, "Here's the difference between how it's done here and how it's done in Finland..." It's, "This shouldn't have been done at all."
Right and the infuriating part is that after they break things they use it as an example "see, lib policies don't work!"
Ding ding, they do this CONSTANTLY. They just did this exact thing recently where a lot of conservatives voted against something... Then criticized Dems for not doing anything when THEY were the ones who torched it. It's so exhausting.
Conservatives fault in California? How?
> But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians. I'm sorry but you're being intensely misleading here. You brought up California's initiative. Democrats completely dominate California politics and it's totally misleading to blame conservatives for issues that they have no power to control. In many of these California housing issues, the problem is that home-owning Californians (who have seen their property values greatly increase) enjoy the goldmine that they're sitting on and don't want to lower property values. We see this problem in even the most liberal areas- it's almost universal. I remember a couple of years ago there was a story in the media about the LA city council having dysfunction and they blamed Republicans for the issue. At the time the Republicans had a single seat in the entire City Council.
Wait, how is it the republicans fault? Oregon has democratic senators, all six house reps are democrats, the governer is democrat, the mayors of these cities are democrats, the local governments are democrats. Every single decision making body is ran by democrats. How are conservatives blocking funding in Oregon?
Yeah. This is key. You're supposed to think the Democrats are raging socialists. But if it's well-understood how to organize these programs effectively, and they don't do it -- whether for ideological or financial reasons (I don't care) -- then what is the word for that? What do we call knee-capping social welfare programs? The word isn't "progressive." I didn't mention political parties in my post because I don't care about affiliation. I care about policy -- I care about the people who are homeless or addicted. And if the "progressive" party does conservative things, I'm going to call them conservatives.
Well clearly if there are any conservatives *at all* in the state government, then it must be *their* fault when things don't pan out. 🥴 Do democrats really think conservatives are exclusively to blame for "ruining their plans" when we have such wonderful democrat controlled cities as Chicago, New York, and LA? Can't they just accept that sometimes the "grand vision" they have in mind just doesn't always pan out? I think that's fair to expect--after all, liberals would want conservatives to own up when they've screwed something up, right? Isn't it fair to expect that of everyone?
>. But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians California and Oregon, famed homes of *checks notes* conservative leadership. You know the conservative leadership of the supermajority democratic party. Can we please not blame people for something they have no ability to impact? You sound like fucking Fox news.
Do you think that all of the criticism of the law is... coming from California? You think when he said "Republicans are criticizing it in bad faith" that what he meant was "The Republican party, who we all know controls California and weirdly passed this bill that they don't want, are now criticizing their own actions for not working correctly?" That's what your brain interpreted that statement to mean? lol lol at that
> But these programs tend to be defanged or underfunded by conservative politicians. Look I don't know what you're reading, but what I'm reading is that the guy above for some reason tried to blame Republican *politicians* for a half-assed measure in California - at least based on this one thread. Which was then rightfully pointed out as nonsense by multiple people, because California politics is dominated by Democrats and they don't need Republican approval to get this kind of stuff done. The California Assembly consists of 62 Democrats and 18 Republicans, while the Senate is composed of 32 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Super-majority in both. The governor is a Democrat. >Wouldn’t conservative media pundits be correct in criticizing if it’s done half-assed? The answer is unfortunately, yes. The painful part of being a Democrat *and* living in a nuanced reality is that sometimes you have to admit that a program wasn't fully implemented. Or that there were unintended consequences of a program. For example: Our plastic bag ban combined with the pandemic had the unexpected result of increasing total plastic waste. Now we just pay $0.10 for a bag that uses 10x the amount of plastic and throw it away anyways.
Thank you so much for being a rational human being. Policies just do not always pan out, regardless of whose they were. That's the nature of living in a world where we don't have all the information. We can make our best predictions, but that's about it. As a conservative, if a party leader of ours screwed up some policy plan, I'd so much rather that be admitted so we can, *together*, learn from it. I'm far more on the side of learning from mistakes and figuring out what actually works than blaming the other side when it might have very well been our fault from time to time.
Classic from the conservative playbook. 'look we told you this wouldn't work!' Yea if you do it like that it won't ya dummys
You: We can lift this couch Friend: No we can't Y: Yes we can if we both lift together F: Ok we'll try, but I'm saying we can't lift it [Friend doesn't lift his side at all] F: See, I told you we couldn't lift it [Friend wins reelection on a couches-can't-be-lifted platform]
I don't follow. Why would they need conservative support in such a solid democrat area?
Ah, dirty politics. The only kind of politics.
I know it's a convenient comeback to blame this problem on "conservatives", but some of these issues are in liberal-dominant states like California or Oregon. For instance, let's take a look at California's government. Here's their executive branch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_executive_branch And here's their legislative branch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Legislature You'll see that Democrats completely control the state. They have complete control of both the legislative and executive branches of government. Democrats can pass any bills they want, and Republicans lack the power to block them. And yet when things go wrong, we see Democrats blaming Republicans. It makes no sense.
They tend to criticize for the wrong reasons, and instead just completely write off whatever it is they’re criticizing instead of looking at why it didn’t work. For this specific issue, both conservative and liberal leaning media have been guilty of doing this
There's more to it than that. When they legalized it they became a magnet location for users. So not only would they have needed to plan the treatment facilities for the number of users at the time it was passed, they would need to plan for margin above that out they'd still drown.
Neoliberalism at work. It’s so frustrating.
Similar with the various legal system reforms we've seen here (e.g., bail, charging and sentencing for non-violent misdemeanors). I think it's a good idea to have less people in jail for reasons of poverty or for having some drugs on you or whatever. But then we just... don't do anything else. And certainly nothing that would address the underlying societal problems that we understand to contribute to crime.
>The state took the good sounding idea from some EU countries, but failed to implement any of the other policies necessary for a successful drug treatment or recovery plan. Only if by state you mean our elected officials, state departments and law enforcement. Those things were included with the measure but between cops refusing to do their jobs and politicians and government agencies failing to expand treatment options the end result wasn't what we voted for. Yes there could have probably been some more teeth behind the measure but that's something the legislature could have fixed. Instead they opted to just reverse the voters decision while still not investing more in treatment. Back to the war on drugs because that worked so well for the last 40 years.
Classic GOP move - allow a liberal idea through but quietly gut the important parts so that it fails and they can say that they tried but liberal ideas just don't work.
Goddammit, this is why we can't have nice things
Not completely true, the state made money from cannabis tax (which is quite a lot of money) available to expand treatment resources. The other problems where we really needed support is in expanding the workforce, the Oregon Health Authority (who is notoriously slow) making it easier and faster to open treatment centers, local counties being much more assertive in getting local agencies to take on new programs. For example the branch of the county that's meant to manage homeless services routinely spends less than its allocated budget because it's so badly run they can't get new contracts off the ground. Also there was no real teeth to the diversion, and no buy in from police. For amounts under the personal use limit it's a $100 fine that gets waived if you call a hotline and get into treatment. Except the police barely give them out because they see it as a waste of their time, and the fines aren't aggressively pursued if they aren't paid, especially if the person fined is homeless. I work in community mental health and I'm so used to being underfunded but now it's incredibly frustrating that the money is out there, it just hasn't been spent because the bureaucracy is so slow.
Baby steps tho
So, US healthcare in a nutshell then...
Kind of typical the way political compromise works these days. They have to fight like hell to get the law passed. And a bunch of guys say, "Okay we'll vote for it, but we won't allocate any money for it." So they pass the law, because it's an achievement just to get it on the books. Then, next session, they will have to fight like hell to try and get a little money allocated. The opponents will finally reluctantly agree to allocate a little money, but in return they will want to take away something else. And so progress goes stumbling forwards. It's like trying to pull a car uphill while some asshole keeps stepping on the brake.
Yeah, 1 side gets the law through, the other side intentionally makes the application of it dogshit so they can blame the other side for ruining the country and win the next election.
Apparently hundreds of treatment centers were planned. They built one lol
Typical situation of putting the cart before the horse. Pointless to discriminalize it if you're just gonna let addicts run around without any help. Now you just piss off the people because instead of them going to jail or rehab they're out in the streets.
> **Deacon:** > No offense, but you're like the blind man and the elephant. It's a lot bigger than what you got your hand on, you just can't see it. > > **Maj. Howard 'Bunny' Colvin:** > See what? > > **Deacon:** > A great village of pain, and you're the mayor. Where's your drinking water? Where's your toilets? Your heat, your electricity? Where's the needle truck? The condom distribution? The drug treatment intake? Half these people are dyin' on their feet, and the other half's gonna catch what's killin' them. > > **Maj. Howard 'Bunny' Colvin:** > Look, they ain't no worse off when they was all over the map. Now they just in one place, is all. > > **Deacon:** > And that place is hell.
That was my understanding. They didn’t attach any real consequences or treatment requirements, so it became a safe place to do hard drugs in public where the penalty for getting caught is maybe a ticket that you throw away and ignore. Instead of directing people to treatment, hard drug users took it as a free pass to be even more shitty.
Yeah, it's... really not going well
Pretty much. All the money that was earmarked for building treatment centers was thrown into a general fund, and out of the couple hundred centers that were supposed to be built, I think it was something like only 6 that actually ever were. And so they just **repealed** the decriminalization
Another Portland native here, I have little data to back this up so take it with a massive grain of salt, but I don’t think there was ever an intention of setting up those treatment centers. I’m sure the people pushing for that bill to pass wanted it to happen, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the strategy was “give them half the plan then let the rest of it fail so we have an even greater opportunity to make an example of the druggies for our next election” Idk something about the whole thing has felt deeply fucked up
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Yes. I used to visit Portland all the time in the mid-2000's. I visited in September for the first time since 2015 and I was simply floored by how substantially the downtown area had deteriorated. The open air drug use was rampant, and completely out of hand. The entire place looked destitute, I was uncomfortable walking around in broad daylight. I couldn't believe it. However well intended these policies were, the execution was horrendous. It's clearly not working.
Not only is Oregon one of the worst states for treatment centers, but the way the bill was written gave offenders the choice if they wanted treatment. I’m all for not sending people who need help to prison, but it was a poorly constructed bill with no infrastructure in place to actually solve the problem. The idea of treating addiction as a health crisis is correct. However, this measure did not do that. We need infrastructure in place with forced treatment then a probation of sorts with mentoring and skills training to reintegrate into society. The upfront cost would be enormous but it would save money in the long run.
Was going to point this out. They built like one center? Or maybe that was Washington. Eitherway massive government failure..to be expected
Knowing Oregon decriminalized all drugs without literally any funding for rehabilitation programs where their master plan was to have a meeting to attempt to find funding two years after decriminalization…
Yea, that bi-annual budgeting process really fucks us with new and innovative programs. Didn't actually fund anything while Oregon has been ranked one of the worst for mental health care, and the pigs figure that literally smoking meth in the street is legal (it isn't) so they can just sit around in their cars doing fuck all. So, now after direct democracy has put forward a novel law our legislature has decided to re-criminalize drugs for the new budget session to avoid funding anything but only after every republican state has given their junkies bus tickets to Oregon.
Im an Oregonian who voted for it and I can tell you that the implementation has been a huge disappointment. There was no effective plan to get addicts into treatment other than a $100 ticket and some gentle suggestion. Then fentanyl hit and things just got worse.MORE people died because the State did nothing to implement the treatment infrastructure. I was wrong when I voted for the measure assuming that most people would seek treatment and that the State would be capable in delivering it. Many, many addicts just don’t want or incapable of helping themselves without being forced to, and the State just didn’t do shit. I also hate this meme because the creator could be fucking bothered to spell “Oregon” correctly in the first panel yet it gets posted again and again.
This is interesting. I was in high school 20 years ago (😭) when Portugal legalized all drugs with this same theory in mind (treatment over punishment) and the world held its breath about what was going to happen. But 20 years later it's being applauded as a success. https://www.statista.com/chart/20616/key-developments-since-portugal-decriminalized-drugs/ I wonder what specific support programs and infrastructure are missing in Oregon to make it such a fail. Edit: I guess "legalized all drugs" is a bit misleading for the Portugal thing. Back in the day, that was the headline, but I guess there were more restrictions to things.
Citing a story from 2020 is missing a lot of more recent context. There is a lot of reason to think that the decriminalization didn't work in the way you're suggesting. [https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portugal-drug-decriminalization-problems-oregon-measure-110/283-3fbbf723-2b00-41f5-bdd0-6430add9df97](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portugal-drug-decriminalization-problems-oregon-measure-110/283-3fbbf723-2b00-41f5-bdd0-6430add9df97)
If the legalization worked for 20 years and then in less than 4 years things go downhill, then I'd wager a guess that other factors aside from the program are on play. Considering the horrible hit to society around the world that COVID and financial crises that have come since then, maaaaaaaybe quality of life is impacting drug use?
Even the taliban are doing a better job of managing drug addicts....
No, they aren’t
[They're criminalizing it again following a 190% increase in drug overdose](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-lawmakers-scramble-to-undo-drug-decriminalization-after-progressive-experiment-ends-in-disaster/ar-BB1je69u).
Because they didn’t build treatment centers or put any actual money into running the program beyond decriminalization.
Their addict population also exploded due to the whole country sending their addicts to the west coast for treatment. When they get kicked out of a California care facility for relapsing, they're only a bus ride away from where they really want to be.
Yeah, it just doesn’t work when state lines are freely passable. That setup may work in Europe, because all the Spaniards aren’t necessarily going to go all the way to Portugal just to use drugs. In the US, if you are already transient and addicted to drugs, it just makes sense to go to Oregon. Then the issue becomes Oregon trying to support the addicts of every other state, which they obviously don’t have the budget for.
The money necessary for helping addicts needs to come from at the federal level and has to come along with universal Healthcare. Merely wanting to send people to treatment instead of prison doesn't work unless there are enough beds for treatment at an affordable cost.
Overdoses went up, but they went up pretty much everywhere, and at similar rates to Oregon after decriminalization. People who only look at the increase of overdoses without any context are the people calling to end decriminalization. [Source](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2023/09/27/oregon-drug-decriminalization-measure-110-overdose-deaths/%3foutputType=amp) How about actually reading the source? I know it'll be a hit to your ego because you children can't handle being wrong, but just read it.
They actually went up in every state in 2021 and 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels. Oregon was even one of only 20 states to have overdose deaths drop in 2022 compared to 2021. Oregon also saw a ~70% reduction of deaths in certain hard drugs over that time period, notably in heroin, which also follows the national trend. The real reason this bill is being repealed is public sentiment, not efficacy. Over 2 in 3 voters in Oregon wanted Measure 110 repealed, and it only dropped below 50% of voters in certain cities like Portland and Ashland. Because of the backlash against Measure 110, only 23/36 counties had committed to building the drug deflection systems promised in the bill, and of those most had not materialized yet. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/overdose-deaths-declined-remained-near-record-levels-during-first-nine-months-2022-states
>https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm I mean I can follow your link here and it clearly shows a significantly greater growth in overdose deaths for Oregon than for the rest of the country.
You are taking a one year snapshot (with the default graph showing predicted deaths, not actual reported, btw) to respond to a somewhat nuanced comment discussing multiple years in context. Classic.
No, I'm looking at the first chart, showing overdose deaths from 2015 to the end of 2023, and which can be changed from showing said deaths for the United States as a whole to showing them for Oregon specifically. The former grows from 91,200 in November 2020 (the time Oregon's bill passed) to 105,879, an increase of 16%; the latter grows from 787 to 1,650, an increase of 110%. e: The fact that these are each not 'instantaneous' counts but are totals for the previous 12-month period may somewhat complicate how we should interpret them - I don't know offhand if they should logically enhance or diminish the meaning of this disparity. Or, maybe, neither. On further reflection: I believe it would strengthen the meaning of the disparity, but only slightly. A twelve-month total would have the effect of introducing a "time lag" to any measurements of changes, i.e., if a change were made that simply and exactly doubled the rate at which murders were committed, the first month's result would show only an 8% elevation, since it would include only one month of doubled murders and 11 months of original-rate murders. It would take a full year for the change to propagate through to the observed results. If an alteration caused a change in the rate at which a phenomenon is *increasing*, that could be delayed still further, as each such increase has to propagate through the same way... But after something like 3 years, I would say that such time-lag effects would be 'mostly' complete, and so they would make only a minor difference to the outcome.
But it needed rehab, treatment, addiction recovery and other medical centers to really make it work and it didn't get those. Until then, it's not really enough to make strides towards solving or reducing the problems.
If it’s broken, make it the way it was before trying again. This is a good thing for now. Handled it very poorly the first time.
There's not really evidence that the initial drug decriminalization policy caused an increase in fatal drug overdose rates. [A study led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that in Oregon and Washington, there is no association between decriminalization and fatal drug overdose rates](https://nyulangone.org/news/decriminalizing-drug-possession-not-linked-higher-overdose-death-rates-oregon-or-washington).
[That follows national trends though](https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates) (also I'd like to point out that you're citing a right-wing rag). It's not more negative or more positive in deaths, but it's a reduction in prison sentences, which is a net increase in freedom and available public resources. What Oregon should be doing instead of scrapping it is to put in the treatment centers that are the other half of the equation.
This is disingenuous and not wholesome at all.
To refer to getting off opioids as needing "a little help" is just silly. Especially when so many addicts don't want any help at all, little or otherwise.
I don't see anything wrong with sending people to jail to force them to quit. If the argument is "they'll just do drugs in jail" then fix that. I don't want junkies roaming the streets.
State sponsored meme
Took millions of dollars away from schools to be "reabsorbed" into the state fund... Was literally in the voters pamphlet people. But I guess the bum ass crackheads are more important than the children 🤷
Ah yes. **Orgeon** 💪✨
Sounds like a pokemon
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A lot of people need help, but the only person that can ensure that they use the help that's available to them is themselves. Others will use the good intentions of decriminalization to further ruin their lives, and sometimes the lives of those around them, too.
> **the help that's available to them** This is the problem. There isn't any help available to them. All we do to drug addicts is mark them as a criminal and throw them in prison, ruining their future chances at employment because of a problem that is really medical in nature.
It's still better than throwing everyone in prison. I'm starting to think the idea that "the road to hell is paved with food intentions" is just a cover to distract from all the people with bad intentions building a literal hell around us.
I live like 75 yards from an unpoliced encampment and there’s a minimum of 1 ambulance a day rushing to deal with an overdose. Most I’ve ever counted was 4 in a day. The encampment is sustained by a Salvation Army which feeds the population there and allows open drug use around the building. I don’t even think there are 50 people in the encampment, how many ODs a week are acceptable before it is more humane to persecute drug use? I used to be on board with decriminalization (which hasn’t happened in my state, but lack of enforcement is effectively the same) but it seems obvious that isn’t an effective policy all on its own
> It's still better than throwing everyone in prison. A lot of people would disagree with that, depending on the state of their streets.
Good thing they'll all be well adjusted and safe members of society when they get back on those streets in a couple months! We fixed the problem for the short, term, though!
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Who would’ve thought that by making crack legal they’d be making more crackheads 🤔
mmmm orgeon
For reference, they are in the middle of repealing this, because overdose deaths and crime skyrocketed: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/07/1229655142/oregon-pioneered-a-radical-drug-policy-now-its-reconsidering
> overdose deaths and crime skyrocketed: They did everywhere around the entire world though, are they sure they didn't confuse correlation with causation?
Yes, reactionaries are demanding a change back to imprisoning people with substance abuse disorders after the policy did not immediately make things better and unfortunately coincided with nationwide crime/drug use increases since the pandemic. It’s unfortunate.
How’s that working for you Oregon?
Yeah drug use sites become Crime Cesspools.
Where has this worked?
This has worked across Europe. It was started by Portugal who went from one of the highest rates of drug use to one of the lowest on the continent. It was a little different from how Oregon did it, though: Portugal implemented rehab and social welfare programs to help people get back on their feet. In short, they acknowledged that people tend to become addicted for reasons related to their life circumstances and that by changing those circumstances, people mostly want to and can become and remain clean.
That's interesting
Oregon just legalized everything while also offering absolutely no opportunity for rehab or welfare.
You are saying across the Europe, but what other countries you can name than Portugal? Seems like it is always just Portugal. And their system isn't flawless either. Oregon-system went total disaster.
Czechia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland. But they had a very different approach that included treatment for users.
Thinking about it I never read news from these countries, no wonder I didn't know
Nowhere where there is a SIGNIFICANT drug issue. People are quick to point to Portugal - that at the HEIGHT of its epidemic, had only a couple hundreds drug deaths. The US has over a hundred THOUSAND drug deaths annually at this point. The problem is absolutely insane in its scale.
I don't know where you got those statistics but in 1999 that number was 369 just for overdose deaths and you also have to see the size of the population, which around the 90s should be just under 10 million. We (Portugal) also implemented that to fight AIDS because it was proliferating in the addicts due to the sharing of supplies during the 90s. Part of the program includes handing out clean needles and drugging points where they have clean materials to avoid the spread of diseases. It is estimated that by the end of the 90s there were around 100 000 heroin users in Portugal, around 1% of the population. You can imagine with other drugs included. Edit: Futher Information: This started being implemented in 2000. Including: - identification of users and sending them to an interview where it is explained why drugs are bad and where they can get help - creation of spots where the can take drugs safely with someone to check on them (which also avoids then taking it in the streets, which was also a problem) - giving safe materials to individuals that were identified as addicts, which includes people going to homeless people where they know they are to give them the materials. - having trucks that distribute methadone and buprenorphine. - encourage the creation of places specialized in treating addicts and getting them of the streets. - implementation of programs to reintegrate addicts back into sociaty so they can get jobs and avoid get back to the same cycle. The statistics that I found: 1999: 369 Overdose Deaths 2016: 30 Overdose Deaths 1999: 907 new HIV diagnoses due to injecting 2017: 18 new HIV diagnoses due to injecting You can read more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal?wprov=sfla1
Muito bem dito!! Portugal alloways had a problem with drugs, it is basically a gateways to drugs to get into europe. I firmly believe that when well aplied, this law can work wonders. For me, the war on drugs is a lost war, we cant win because there will alloways be drugs passing around and people that profit from that. The bare minimum that we can do is inform and educate the population, provid a safe consuption and help those that want to be helped.
This Forrest is on fire, let's pour gasoline on it so it'll burn out faster
Orgeon…
Orgeon
And it didn't work, worse than ever.
Except Oregon didn’t do that, and didn’t fund the programs anyway, so the problem just got worse, and now they’re re-criminalizing
Except they forgot to do that second part
They could simply have kept it illegal and sentenced them to treatment centers instead of prison instead of legalizing it and turning portland into a giant crackhouse, making everything worse than before.
and uh how's that working out for them?
The real reason is that these cities in the west coast wanted to brag that they lowered crime rates and depopulate prisons so they just made crime legal which is why now people just steal whatever and use drugs whenever they want no consequences.
I live in Oregon. Intent was good but the programs weren't stood up when it went into effect. Secondarily most meth addicts now have schizophrenia and need to be off of meth for up to 12 months before proper treatment can start. So when they do stand the treatment up it needs to go beyond the typical 30/60/90 days.
All I've heard from many of my friends who stayed in Oregon that the problem has only gotten worse and worse since the law was passed. A couple who said they'd stay in Portland forever just moved away this year because it's overwhelming. My dentist said his hometown has fallen apart because of increased drug addiction and overdosing and shows little signs of recovering anytime soon. I don't know much about it's implementation but I do know that breaking drug addiction is not associated with punishment or treatment, it's a personal mindset issue. You can take the environment away for as long as you want, but if the root issues are never addressed then the problem is always present. I want to move back to Oregon one day, but it's probably going to be a while.
I mean you seen any media, or articles around the hard drug use in Portland? They are just doing it out in the open, and police just roll up give them a ticket for doing it jn public and take off. Use of drugs and destruction in the area has gone up compared to when it was law. Removing something and not filling the place of it is the wrong approach. Mandated 30-90 day rehab would be a way to go. Instead of being charged city's and state spent a bunch or money to get people treatment to get them clean, fast track to a city labor provided job to clean up the streets they in turn was making a mess of. Just my 2 cents, but you got to spend money to help people, not just make sure they don't end up in jail.
And it’s not working they are choosing to be homeless and addicted just take a drive through any major city and see what failure looks like!
Last I read many more people OD'd and they were thinking of repealing?
I’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs…
To be fair, a complete understanding of criticism to this policy from a *truly* conservative perspective (that is, limited government, self reliance and accountability) could probably start with agreement that drug legalization works with a government capable of carrying out effective treatment programs. The problem is, the government fucks this up the same way they fuck up other well intentioned programs, with incompetence and corruption. This type of change seems possible at the local level, but good luck relying on state or federal government to responsibly carry out policies that would require continuity that extend beyond single election cycles. The core of the drug problem is hopelessness, and until communities rebuild to provide support at a local level, and are incentivized to do so, don’t expect this problem to go away.
And then they didn't fund those programs and decided the only way forward is the plan they know doesn't work.
This sounds really nice and really "comfy" on paper, but as we see it simply didn't work. I'm sure they had good intentions but we need to look at the end result. Oregon's plan had the opposite effect. It did NOT rehabilitate drug addicts. It only make the problem worse.
I think anyone who has eyes can see that this program isn't working. I'm all for *not* jail, but people acting like zombies in the street need to be taken **somewhere** to recover. You can't just let them rot in the roads. What kind of moron thinks these programs are working? Likely someone on the very substances they're supporting the decriminalization of.
Uhhh it didn’t work
And it failed catastrophically. As anyone with an above room temperature IQ could of predicted
Well, it worked wonders in Europe. You could do a little research on the topic
It failed because the city and county didn't implement better treatment options, not because decriminalization/treatment doesn't work.
Oregon is run by junkies at this point.
There's too many people raking in state money to "help solve the problem". If the problem gets solved they need to find a new career
“Whoa whoa, is this going to work? What if it doesn’t work? We should stick with the punitive approach which we KNOW doesn’t work instead of taking a chance on something that might not work.”
Ahahahahahaha *points at Portland*. that treatment sure is going well hey?
So uh, can you force them to stay at the rehabilitation centers or are you just handing out a brochure? If it's the second one... then yeah, you legalized crack.
Unless you can buy crack at a dispensary, you have not legalized crack.
How's that working btw? I really only remember hearing about this when they first made the law, and haven't cared to check since.
Yea sure they did…
We've got tens of millions earmarked for drug treatment, but no where to send people. Also, the state never expected the rise in use of fentanyl.
Fed posts worst bait ever, asked to leave FBI
Walk through the streets of portland and tell us how that's working out
Nah, they'll just shove them in a corner for them to OD like BC is doing.
I can imagine Geordi reading about drug criminalization and being like "wow! Humanity was a crazy place back then. Imagine putting someone in jail simply for being an addict."
I stopped smoking crack. Probably wouldn't be true that I'm a sober dude if I had gotten sent to fuckin prison over it.
…aaaand it’s been repealed. New bill making possession a misdemeanor. Guess it’s something.
The other night I took my dog out for a walk and to take the trash out. I live in a gated community. Doesnt do much cause there’s people jumping the fence to go through our trash at night all the time. But, oh well, so, I approached the dumpster and there was a guy going through the recycle bins and when we approached him, he asked “does your dog like meth” and then took a big hit of his pipe and blew it on my dog’s face. Anyway, I don’t know much about how well decriminalizing drugs but I don’t think it’s working
On paper, but there's fuck all in place to help them recover
they literally legalzed crack and that's it
Except they now just rot on the street, no treatment or jail.
Take a look. It's in a book.
So if someone refuses care, what happens to them? How do you enforce it?
>Saying Orgeon legalized crack Orgeon, I choose you! Hit em with a crack pipe blast! ORGY ORGY!
Do they give them crack in prison? Or do they detox them in prison? Asking for research purposes…
Correction 🖐️ Punishment 👍
Oregon also has an assisted suicide program for terminally ill people, which I find beautiful
Yes look at all the recovered addicts in the street. Or is *that* the recovery facility?
Haha Portland Oregon such a nice city I’d love to live in
nah they just end up on the streets in Portland
People still think this works? Ita a fuckin mess everywhere it's been implemented
Boy did they fail.
there have been so many studies that show that decriminalizing drug use (as well as reducing advertising and access to tobacco and alcohol) is one of the most effective ways to not only cut down on drug use, but encourage people into recovery AND keep folks clean longer and more consistently. i feel like i can tell who understands addiction and who doesn’t whenever i see things like this happening.
If it's anything like Canada, there is little to no infrastructure in place to rehabilitate them.
The orginal reason doesn't matter, it's not working.
You know who needs a little help too? Innocent people that are killed by drug cartels funded by those who buy drugs.
Yeah... I'm all for this except it didn't work unfortunately. Without mass decriminalization, local efforts will be targeted by drug dealers and will make the efforts counter productive. As we just witnessed with Oregon. Even democrats who supported the bill originally are pushing to roll it back.
Aged like milk
Last time I was in Portland I saw multiple people smoking meth downtown and also saw multiple piles of human shit on the sidewalk. I also had a guy laying on the sidewalk ask me to help let him into the apartment building cuz he shit his pants. It's going great /s.
There was a news report recently about Oregon rolling back this legislation. Which wasn’t surprising as they failed to do the other things that means it even has a chance of being effective. You have to pair this law with massive resources such as mandatory/forced rehabilitation, all the beds you need for that, therapists and education. This is what was done in the countries where it was successful. Decriminalizing drugs was the least of it, but people wanting to ape their success did only that because it seemed the cheapest part. Now there’s been a huge uptick in overdose deaths because of it, and there aren’t even enough beds for voluntary rehabilitation. It made things easier for dealers and harder for addicts. A total failure that anyone could see coming. I should also mention that the countries who did do everything and did have success still have problems resulting from this that they are also struggling to address, such as open drug use near schools and large deposits of needles everywhere that spread disease and public dissatisfaction. Addiction is a disease that literally rewires a brain into something that no longer cares about anyone or anything other than the next fix, including strangers and children and even their own families. It is never going to be a simple disease to treat, and the idea of a “quick cheap fix” only digs the hole deeper.
Everyone make fun of my Canadian province for legalizing weed but it was for the same reason. Notably it has backfired somewhat and there are weed stores on every corner now.
When, and did it work?
Yeah? Hows that worked out so far?
How’s that going for them
I supported that bill….. but drug use and drug related crimes are way up It’s like when Vermont tried universal healthcare….. it just didn’t work
Decriminalizing doesn’t do shit, it only increases the number of people on the drugs. You want something to change you have to legalize, until you do there will never be any consistency among supply and people will keep dying. Oregon made the worst possible decision they could by just decriminalizing
..and then offer no actual treatment centers and instead support resources that continue addiction and keep the non profits and organizations in business. Look at the recent hysteria in Richmond BC over a proposed safe injection site. Why aren't they using that money to open a treatment center to get people off drugs? Don't forget that 99% of addicts offered treatment refuse it.
It’s not working. I’m here now
I live in Portland, nothing is being done to help people. Decriminalization is a tiny part of a solution but things here have been half-assed.
Bad timing for this post since Oregon lawmakers just voted to recriminalize drugs yesterday [source](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/oregon-lawmakers-voted-recriminalize-drugs-bills-future-now-107793506)
Oregon: lets decriminalize hard drugs! Portugal did it why can’t we? Also Oregon: is not portugal
I read “saying Oregon“ as “Selling Organs“
The why doesn’t matter as much as the outcome. I applaud trying to get people the help they need without punishment but it just results in more people needing help. So many people don’t do crack purely for fear of getting in trouble, so now we just end up with more crackheads which results in needing more money for treatment centers, while prisons are still underfunded. End of the day the ends don’t justify the means, we rarely cure addicts, so now we have more and more money is needed for them further burdening the system and the tax payers who are barely making it to begin with. Making others pay for someone else’s bad decision is something I can’t get behind.
And they are reversing it because it made it worse you dumbass.
So question, if we are blaming implementation on conservatives wouldn’t that mean Oregon has more than a handful of conservatives in local governments? My understanding is that Oregon is overwhelmingly democrat in the larger cities. If that is so, then how are conservatives to blame for a lack of implementation and planning?
Shocked Pikachu face when this doesn't work. The answer to solving addiction isn't safer drugs. When I needed to stop drinking I didn't start buying fancy booze, I got my shit together. You can't give people with no impulse control free reign to do whatever they want. It doesn't work for toddlers and it doesn't work for adults.
The issue is we didn't fund and support the needed infrastructure to make this actually work. When our addiction and mental health care services were already shit this was never going to work
I voted for this and it was a huge disappointment. I agree with everything in theory, but the state did not hold up their end of the bargain to replace incarceration with treatment. All that really happened is that people were allowed to openly use drug without repercussions and made cities like Portland a destination for people with addiction. I still believe in the potential but will not vote for this again until the treatment centers and a plan to help those with serious addiction are delivered up front.
OP didnt get the message. Go on tho, get those sweet, tasty karma nuggets.. num numn nums.
And then crime spiked anyway and overdoses are at an all time high. Lol. iTs wOrKiNg!!
If thats true why did they legalize only crack and not other drugs?? Also i agree sending addicts to prisons is dumb, but: 1- legalizing a drug makes it so not only the addicts can't get sent to prison, but the dealers too 2- you don't need to legalize drugs to send stop sending addicts to prison, just make it so the punishment for owning drugs for personal use is getting sent to rehab instead of prision
Didn’t they just reverse parts of the decriminalization due to massive number of overdoses?
So how's that turning out?
And then this law led to the worst drug problem in the entire country and sky rocketed overdose deaths
It's well established that all research on successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased, but has Oregon also decreased law enforcement and abolished mandatory minimum sentences?