The blue state push to legalize drugs and tolerate lawlessness seemed like a good idea for Oregon voters when they voted to decriminalize all drugs in 2020. However, as it turns out, allowing people to shoot heroin and smoke meth in public isn’t good for anyone. Almost 60% of liberal Oregon voters cast their ballots in favor of Measure 110, which decriminalized personal use of all drugs and redirected an enormous amount of the revenue the state was receiving from legalized marijuana to fund grants for addiction services.
Unfortunately, most addicts have no interest in recovery services, and if they aren’t incarcerated or otherwise forced to get clean, then recovery never happens. That is what Oregon is discovering, and businesses and residents are fed up. Political and business leaders in Oregon are urging legislators to reform the drug laws. Barring that, the coalition of concerned leaders plans to bring a ballot measure before the same voters that approved the disastrous change.
Former state legislator and onetime director of the Oregon Department of Corrections Max Williams said: “Oregonians still believe that the best strategy is a minimal use of criminal justice resources to encourage people into treatment and recovery. But they also realize the tools that we’ve currently given law enforcement . . . are not working.”
The Coalition to Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110 has commissioned three polls this year, and the results are largely the same: people are done with drugs and lawlessness. Fentanyl has been a growing issue since Joe Biden effectively opened our southern border, and subsequently, drug overdose deaths shot up 45% from 2019 numbers. Further, the coalition is seeking to decriminalize heroin and meth as well and require treatment as an alternative to jail instead of voluntary as it now stands.
The coalition isn’t composed of conservatives, either. Nike CEO Phil Knight and Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle have also put forth a voter initiative to ban public drug use and decriminalize possession of hard drugs. Measure 110 made possession punishable by just a $100 fine, much lower than traffic tickets in many places. Williams went on to say: “Writing somebody a ticket that is oftentimes less than what you would get for parking illegally in downtown Portland is not motivating people to seek treatment and recovery. The data for that is overwhelming.”
Some supporters of Measure 110 contend that decriminalization is a bad thing: “It re-stigmatizes people who need help. People are less likely to get help when they are stigmatized.” Concerning themselves more with the feelings of addicts as opposed to law-abiding citizens so far hasn’t worked and, if anything, has made Oregon a laughingstock.
Williams laid it on the line by saying: “Nobody’s looked at Oregon and said, ‘Wow, this is a model of fabulous success. If anything, a state like our friends to the north in Washington, I think, quickly moved to reinstate criminal sanctions associated with possession of these hard drugs because they did not want to follow the pattern that Oregon had followed.”
Even liberal Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has had enough. He said: “There really are people that are dying as a result of this policy. (Waiting) just delays the crisis that we’re in that much longer.” Oregon is a beautiful state, but unfortunately, bad policy and liberal leadership have ruined the state for the foreseeable future.
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