The person behind demainstay.com has advocated for drug reform through the lens of addiction medicine since 1999 when she interned at the Drug Policy Alliance (Lindesmith Center West) in San Francisco. At the time, marijuana was illegal, ecstasy was the most troubling club drug, fentanyl was only administered in surgical settings and drug-related mass incarceration was championed by Republicans and Democrats.

Beginning in 2000, Democrat-aligned interest groups started funding citizen initiative ballot measures promoting “harm reduction” and relaxing drug laws. In 2020, Oregon — where I’ve lived for 18 years — enacted the most progressive example of drug law yet by decriminalizing ALL drugs except marijuana, which had been legalized by a 2014 initiative.

There’s an important distinction here. By legalizing cannabis, the state maintained involvement in its control and obligated consumers to accept restricted permission to use it. By decriminalizing hard drugs, the state removed itself as regulator and prevention partner. Permission for drug consumption became unrestricted.

Unrestricted permission to use drugs encourages drug sellers to seek profit in the less encumbered marketplace. Cartels didn’t choose blindly when they started flooding fentanyl up and down Oregon in 2021. Decision-makers of multinational drug dealers are businessmen, and they turned their attention to our state in response to favorable economic potential.

This has come at a dear price. Across Oregon, our civic soul’s tenderly threaded relief valve has been stripped by a generation’s worth of laws broadening drug access. Deterrence is not a dirty word. Addicted individuals deserve better. Their friends and families deserve better. Discouraging drug misuse — which is the opposite of increasing drug access — is pro-social public policy.

Addiction prevention should not be partisan.