On November 3rd, Measure 110 passed in Oregon, decriminalizing possession of small amounts of all drugs. It also lowers the criminality of possessing larger amounts of drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor, and directs millions in marijuana tax revenue toward funding addiction recovery centers and a general fund for drug treatment and recovery. With the passage of this law, the possession of small amounts of drugs earns you a ticket and a $100 fine, or the choice to be screened for a substance abuse disorder. This doesn’t mean that all drugs, including cocaine, heroin, meth, and opioids, are legalized, but they are no longer criminalized either. Oregon is the first state in the nation to do this. It’s a major step to rebuking the War on Drugs, which has over the course of decades put thousands of people in prison. In fact, one in five prisoners in America today, including federal and state prisons, is there for a drug offense. Within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which of course only registers federal offenders, 46.2% of all prisoners are incarcerated for a drug-related offense. The police make more than a million arrests each year for drug possession nationwide. The American War on Drugs has faced more scrutiny in recent years. John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon’s chief of staff, is quoted as saying that the War on Drugs was meant to target the antiwar left and Black communities specifically. A libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, found in their analysis that the War on Drugs has in fact increased drug overdose deaths and fueled the creation of powerful drug cartels. Thus, Measure 110 is a big move that shifts focus away from punitive measures for those who use drugs toward a rehabilitative and treatment-based approach. To examine what impacts this may have, it’s helpful to look to Portugal, which as an entire nation did the same thing nineteen years ago. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized, not legalized, but decriminalized small possessions of all drugs, as Oregon did in this election. Since then, with an expansion there of drug addiction treatments, they’ve seen a number of benefits. Opioid overdoses have fallen, as have drug-related diseases like hepatitis C and HIV. Prison overcrowding decreased as well. In the five years following the decriminalization, however, murders rose by double-digits, but they then fell again. Analysis shows this may have resulted from drug traffickers thinking the country was so-called “free game,” when drug trafficking was not legalized, leading to more clashes with police. Drug-related crimes did go down as well during this period. Portugal faced such a crisis in the 1980s of heroin use that as many as one in ten people used it at the time. It first countered this massive problem with an approach even harsher than the American slogan “just say no;” it was literally “drugs are Satan.” However, as perspectives changed, the mindset did too, and it began to be about treating those with addiction problems. Drug users went from being called "junkies" to people with addiction disorders or just drug users. This wasn’t just a policy change: it was coupled with social change and compassionate treatment policies. As Oregon moves forward with a new policy on drug possession, these other social factors will also need to be taken into consideration. Right now, the tax revenue from marijuana, from which the funding for Addiction Recovery Centers comes, is $100 million and projected to grow by $20 million in coming years. The new policy moves $57 million in just the first year to funding, and projects that to grow in coming years as revenue does as well. It’s also noted that it costs the state $15,000 to deal with each misdemeanor drug offense, which is actually far less than the cost for treatment. Ultimately, the results of this change in Oregon may change the course of drug policy in the rest of the United States, and demonstrate how decriminalization works out for Americans. There will likely be a lot of national interest in how the effects of Measure 110 plays out here in the state, including overdose deaths. The Willamette Week reported on Oregon’s comparably very high drug use and abuse problem in 2019. In 2018, 338 people in the state died from opioid-related overdoses alone, and the number related to synthetic opioids went up by nearly double between 2016 and 2018. We will see what these trends demonstrate in the coming years. Sources: Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020 BOP Statistics: Inmate Offenses Pointers From Portugal on Addiction and the Drug War Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it? Oregon decriminalizes possession of street drugs, becoming first in nation 2020 Oregon election results: The Oregonian Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act (FINAL) (00818140).DOCX Report: Nixon aide says war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies Nixon adviser Ehrlichman explains anti-left, anti-black war on drugs Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs Oregon: Opioid-Involved Deaths and Related Harms Nobody Can Beat Oregon for Drug Use and Abuse Image source: Vox. Instagram post photo source: AP News - Kate Voltz If you want to write for the Crescent Crier, we would love to see you at one of our virtual meetings, which are every Wednesday at 1:30pm! To come to a meeting, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/TrQ5PqFcDqeE2yiB9, and we’ll send you a link ASAP. 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