90 days of experiment: Portland decrees a state of emergency to wean itself off fentanyl

Fentanyl has taken its toll on Portland. The authorities of the State of Oregon have declared this week a 90-day emergency to get rid of the powerful opioid that has caused a health crisis in the United States. The substance has left Multnomah County, where the city is located, with an increase in fatal overdoses of 533% in the last four years. “We have never seen a drug this addictive and we are grappling with our response,” Governor Tina Kotek admitted. The measure is intended to be another experiment in a city that has explored new routes in drug policy without the expected results.

The emergency declaration allows state, county and municipal authorities to establish ground zero in downtown Portland, which has seen how the emergency has also caused an economic crisis. Dozens of businesses have abandoned the core of Oregon's most populous city, with 600,000 residents.

The command center aims to unify the response to the epidemic and erase bureaucratic obstacles between levels of Government. Fentanyl addicts will be able to find all the care they need in one building. Regardless of whether this is the need for a bed in a rehab facility, a doctor's appointment, or for social programs or eating support.

“It is worth investing in, fighting for and showing a clear path to rehabilitation for all those who are fighting fentanyl addiction,” Governor Kotek said in a press conference. The details of the measure will be announced in the coming weeks, but for now the local press has reported that the declaration does not require new financial resources. It only focuses the spending of the three levels on the care of hundreds of people.

The move has been met with skepticism. “We should save the applause until we see what really happens,” Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran told the local newspaper. The Oregonian. The official asked to adopt the emergency last year to confront the epidemic that has left 210 deaths between 2018 and 2022 (the last year available in statistics) and that has led to an increase in several crimes. “They have taken too long to decide that we have a crisis on our hands that is certainly not going to be over in 90 days,” she added.

The heart of the debate now taking place in Oregon is what the state should do with Initiative 110, which decriminalized ownership of small amounts of hard drugs, including fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamines. The measure was approved in 2020 by 56% of the entity's voters, one of the most liberal in the fight against drug prohibition.

The initiative, the first of its kind in the country, sought to change decades of a punitive approach to drug policy, which has led to prison overcrowding and has taken a particular toll on poor blacks and Latinos. Similar rules have been approved and implemented in several cities in the American West, such as Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The authorities of these cities have limited, if not reversed, these types of proposals.

This appears to be the fate of Initiative 110. Democrats, who have governed Oregon since 1987, recently unveiled a legislative proposal that would modify the spirit of the measure. If approved, the local Congress would once again make the possession of small amounts a non-serious crime. The new rule would also allow authorities to confiscate substances and prevent use on public roads. It would also make it easier for prosecutors to pursue traffickers and force patients into a rehabilitation clinic, a show of force that is also being debated in San Francisco. 63% of Oregonians support the new law.

Oregon is below the national average for fatal illicit drug overdoses. It has 30 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, while the capital, DC, is at the top of the list with 94.2 and is followed by Tennessee (55.4), Delaware (55.1) and Maine (51.6) . The national average is 35. The entity's authorities reported that in 2022 three people died every day due to accidental overdoses. The black addicts had the worst part, that register 36% more fatal overdoses than whites in Multnomah County. Fentanyl, a substance between 80 and 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more deadly than heroin, has catapulted the crisis.

Politicians appear to have made up their minds about the future of Initiative 110. The experiment, however, has been defended by scientists and academics. Last fall, a study by NYU Grossman School of Medicine concluded that the rule did not lead to an increase in overdoses or substance abuse deaths.

The team of doctors investigated 13 states that had a similar level of substance use to Oregon. After three years of analysis, the period in which the initiative has been in force, there is no conclusive evidence that it has caused more deaths. Corey Davis, the person in charge of the investigation, said that accidental overdoses spiked “basically everywhere.”

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