One of the pioneering paradigms in the United States in the treatment of drugs and addictions seems to be living its last hours. Tina Kotek, the governor of Oregon, has a bill on her desk that ends the law that legalized drug possession and prioritized addiction treatment with public money. After just four years, politicians have reversed the experiment that began at the polls in 2020, when 58% of voters endorsed Initiative 110. A sharp increase in overdoses in the midst of the fentanyl epidemic has been enough for the political class goes back.
“We are moving in a direction where we are telling our state that we hear you, that we respect your voice and that we are taking action,” state Senate Republican leader Tim Knopp said Friday. That day the Upper House easily approved by 21 votes to 8 to pass a rule that once again makes the possession of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamines a crime. Neither hallucinogenic mushrooms nor marijuana, a drug legalized since 2014 for recreational use, have been touched by the new law, known as House Bill 4002 (HB4002).
The initiative creates a new punitive scheme. Possession of illegal drugs becomes a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison. It also allows police to confiscate substances in parks, public spaces and campgrounds. Likewise, it facilitates the arrest and harsher penalties against traffickers.
It is a significant contrast when compared to the objective of the law that the Senate codified after the victory at the polls of Measure 110, which went into effect in February 2021. The maximum penalty for a user in possession of hard drugs was a fine that ranged from 45 to 100 dollars. There was no jail, no state supervision, or other penalties. The fined people had 45 days to attend clinical treatments financed with money taxed by legal marijuana dispensaries. The reward of attending these therapies was seeing the charges expunged.
After a year in force, an audit showed that the system produced less than optimistic results. Only 1% of people who received a summons to start treatment sought help. Initiative 110, voted for by 1.3 million people, was inspired by the effort launched in Portugal since 2000, a country that changed its approach to the war on drugs. However, Oregon politicians have now realized that one of the key factors of the Portuguese reform was a more proactive stance by the state in treating addictions.
Legislators did not take into account the fentanyl epidemic that has marked the United States in recent years. This wave of deaths left by this synthetic opiate has taken its toll on Oregon, a State of 4.2 million people, which has recorded a year-on-year increase of 1,500% in the number of deaths due to overdose. It is the steepest jump recorded in the entire country. The entity recorded 280 accidental deaths due to opiates in 2019. In 2022 there were 956. The figure fell slightly last year to stand at 628.
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As of Monday, Democratic Governor Kotek has not said when she will sign the law into law. In January, however, the president assured that she was willing to do so. Five of the eight votes against HB4002 were from progressive legislators from her party, mostly African Americans, one of the races most affected by US drug policy. Sen. Lew Frederick of Portland has criticized the new rule, which he sees as a return to the war on drugs. Flaws or not, the new legislation has a lot of support. The local Lower House approved it with a 51-7 vote.
Democratic politicians have tried to downplay the failure of the experiment with the announcement of a million-dollar investment in addiction care. Senators have approved the investment of $211 million in projects and programs aimed at treating addictions, including within prisons. Part of these resources will be allocated to prevention and mental health. “With this law we redouble our commitment to ensure that the population has access to the treatments and care they need,” Democratic Majority Leader Kate Lieber said on Friday. The senator assures that this law will be “the true beginning of a transformation of the justice system.”
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