Back to Failure?

Drug Policy in Oregon Goes Backward

Well, it happened. As predicted in my last post, Oregon’s legislature used a few precious days of its extra-short session this year to go backward on drug reforms. The first-in-the-nation decriminalization of “hard” drugs was effectively repealed on Friday. I’ll go into more detail when I see the final results and implementation, but for now the state has re-criminalized possession of drugs and re-instituted its jail-first strategy of the last fifty years. Of course, there are nuances, but it is a sad step back from the models pioneered successfully in places like Portugal. Let me know your reaction to the policy change—including if and why you support it.

Citation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/us/oregon-drug-decriminalization-rollback-measure-110.html