![]() ![]() That's left the system reeling just as decriminalization programs try to take flight. Because of social distancing and other pandemic protocols, Oregon, like many states, had to reduce the number of treatment beds and services. "There were no resources and no mechanisms in 110 to actually prepare the health care system to receive those folks," Marshall says.Īnd the pandemic struck and decimated a treatment system that was already struggling, experts here say. In fact, Marshall and others worry the treatment and harm reduction horse isn't even on its feet in Oregon, which is leaving too many stuck in a dangerous pre-treatment limbo and at potential risk of overdosing. "So we put the cart before the horse," he says. There, anyone caught with less than a 10-day supply of any drug gets mandatory medical treatment.īut Marshall and others point out that Portugal took more than two years to transition carefully to a new system and replace judges, jails and lawyers with doctors, social workers and addiction specialists. The nation began treating addiction as a public health crisis. In 2001, Portugal dramatically changed its approach and decriminalized all drugs. Oregon supporters of decriminalization point to Portugal as a reform model. "My drug of choice from beginning to end was alcohol," he says, "but the last 10 years was dominated by crystal meth." "Our big problem is our health care system doesn't want it, is not prepared for it, doesn't have the resources for it and honestly doesn't have the leadership to begin to incorporate that ," says Marshall, who is in long-term recovery himself. Realizing the measure's promise has sharply divided the recovery community, alienated some in law enforcement and left big questions about whether the Legislature will fully fund the measure's promised expansion of care.Įven many recovery leaders here who support ending the criminalization of addiction are deeply concerned the state basically jumped off the decriminalization cliff toward a fractured, dysfunctional and underfunded treatment system that's not at all ready to handle an influx of more people seeking treatment.Īdvocates for decriminalization "don't understand the health care side, and they don't understand recovery," says Mike Marshall, co-founder and director of the group Oregon Recovers. ![]() And this helps get us closer to that."īut five months since decriminalization went into effect, the voter-mandated experiment is running into the hard realities of implementation. It's really important to me that we smash the stigma on addiction and drug use. "We can't nibble around the edges on this. People's lives have been destroyed," says Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which campaigned last year to pass decriminalization and is now pushing to see it's fully funded and implemented. "The War on Drugs has been primarily really waged on communities of color. "We can't nibble around the edges on this," she says. Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, says the state's decriminalization marks bold systemic change. And while critics everywhere have long called the drug war a racist, inhumane fiasco that fails to deliver justice or health, Oregon is the first to take a leap toward radically changing those systems. drug policy, expands funding and access to addiction treatment services using tax revenue from the state's pot industry as well as from expected savings from a reduction in arrests and incarceration.įor years Oregon has ranked near the top of states with the highest rates of drug and alcohol addiction and near the very bottom nationally in access to recovery services. The measure, a major victory for advocates pushing for systemic change in U.S. That fee can get waived if you get a health screening from a recovery hotline. ![]() Oregonians overwhelmingly passed Measure 110 that makes possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin, LSD and methamphetamine, among other drugs, punishable by a civil citation - akin to a parking ticket - and a $100 fine. The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later Overdose Deaths Rose During The War On Drugs, But Efforts To Reduce Them Face Backlash ![]()
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