HAVEN WHEELOCK has a wonderful name. She was a chief petitioner for Oregon Measure 110. In an Oregonian guest column addressing decriminalization criticism in November 2021, she asked Oregon voters to “let the program show its worth. The outcomes that really matter are lives saved and services rendered.”

It’s 2025. We now know that lives are being lost and the needle exchange services Outside In are rendering are negatively impacting neighbors and businesses.

Her name jumped out at me in a February 21, 2024 Guardian article titled How Oregon turned on its own trailblazing drug law: ‘Not the utopia we were promised‘. While the reporting doesn’t mention Wheelock’s additional interest as a chief petitioner, it writes:

For Haven Wheelock, a harm-reduction advocate whose works for an organization in Portland that has received funding from Measure 110, the danger of walking back the law is, in part, existential. “I think it’s going to make policymakers less brave,” she explained. “Oregon was a leader in this space. It will set us back…Wheelock stands in downtown Portland at the needle exchange site for the organization she works for, Outside In. She and her team have fostered a sense of community with substance users here, but they stop short of allowing drug use on site. “Please do not buy, sell, or use drugs within a three block radius of here,” reads a sign on the door.“Our neighbors hate us and want to shut us down and it makes us look bad.”

The article goes on to mention that through Measure 110 funding, Outside In, where Wheelock is employed, has been awarded more than $1,000,000.00.

They use it in part to pay for the harm reduction services they hand out – clean needles and pipes, overdose kits. They see an estimated 100 people a day here.

On behalf of her employer, Wheelock is also a lobbyist in Salem. An Outside In website press release (with a smiling photograph of Wheelock and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek) applauds her effort on the passage of six separate bills further codifying harm reduction into Oregon law.

Earlier this month, Governor Tina Kotek signed six bills into law targeting Oregon’s addiction and mental health crises. Haven Wheelock, Outside In’s Drug Users Health Services Program Supervisor, has advocated for all six bills, and was instrumental in drafting The Opioid Harm Reduction Bill (HB2395)

I’m trying to understand how this is in the best interest of the state. As a chief petitioner, Wheelock was seminal to the creation of Measure 110. Then a lot of money from Measure 110 was awarded to her employer. Wheelock has enough access to legislators and the governor to be considered “instrumental” drafting additional laws that could potentially impact her employer through more future funding. This is very full circle.

How did decriminalization work out for the rest of us?