First US state to decriminalise hard drugs may be set for swift U-turn
Oregon, the first US state to decriminalise hard drugs, is set for a U-turn after addicts took over the streets of major cities.
Police chiefs, district attorneys and city officials are leading demands for Oregon to recriminalise heroin and fentanyl, reversing key provisions of the liberal experiment, which was introduced in 2021.
Underpinning the original initiative, known as Measure 110, was the belief that decriminalising hard drugs would make it easier to get addicts into treatment.
There is a growing feeling that the experiment has backfired and support is increasing for a measure – which could go on the ballot next year – to prosecute drug users again.
Measure 110 was backed by 58 per cent of voters in a referendum in November 2020.
Now, three years later, an Emerson poll showed how public opinion has swung dramatically, with 56 per cent of voters backing a repeal.
Avoiding rehabilitation
Only a fraction of addicts given “tickets” for drugs offences, instead of jail time, progress into rehabilitation, preferring instead to be slapped with a $100 fine.
“It has been pretty awful,” Matt Siegmund, the owner of Gardner Floor Covering in Eugene, told The Telegraph.
The homeless have sheltered underneath the awning at the front of the store for some time. However, the decriminalisation of hard drugs has brought a marked change.
“In the past, we were dealing with older drunks, but since Measure 110 was passed the people are younger and more belligerent.
“They have been defecating and urinating. For the last three weeks, police have been sweeping the homeless people away so I and my staff can come to work.”
“It is not helping our business. Measure 110 was supposed to get people into treatment, but there isn’t the infrastructure to support it.”
“I have friends who work in social security and they say that only 30 per cent of the IDs they see are from Oregon.”
Attracting more addicts
Far from solving the problem, there is evidence that the liberal experiment is attracting addicts from elsewhere and the state, lacking the capacity to offer treatment to thousands of addicts, has been overwhelmed.
The biggest criticism centres on the policy of citing offenders - equivalent to ticketing in the UK.
Under Measure 110, those cited would be fined $100. But the penalty would be lifted if the addict rang a self-help line and sought treatment.
In Oregon, according to Eugene’s police chief, Chris Skinner, around 6,000 people were cited, but fewer than 125 rang the self-help line.
“We don’t have even really one successful example of somebody that went from a citation issued on the street to self-assessment to addiction services to a place of wellness,” he told Eugene City Council.
He warned that the state was “on pace to shatter the record for overdose calls for service and shatter the record for overdose deaths. Police officers and firefighters are administering Narcan, life-saving Narcan at an alarming rate.”
While the police are not calling for the complete reversal of the measure, they are backing making drug possession an offence again so addicts can be compelled to have treatment.
Severe impact on businesses
Businesses are also calling for sweeping changes.
“When measure 110 was passed, we in our community started to see a significant rise in crime and in particular, open-air drug use,” said Tiffany Edwards, vice president of policy and community development at Eugene Chamber of Commerce.
“There were a lot of complaints from the business community. It is having a severe impact on our businesses, economic development and the wellness of our community.
“We recognised while Measure 110 coincided with the explosion of fentanyl in the US in general, I think what we learned was that there were a lot of flaws in how the measure was implemented,” she told The Telegraph.
But there are voices opposed to turning back the clock.
The Drug Policy Alliance, which supports decriminalisation, said prosecuting users would “go back to a harmful system where people are arrested and put in jail for drug possession.”
It added: “Jailing people is a waste of resources that results in a revolving door of arrest and incarceration that never addresses the root causes of drug use.”
