Oregon is Paying a High Price for Loose Drug Laws
The move fast and break things approach to drug decriminalization in Oregon has been deadly and devastating for Portland in particular.
After decriminalizing ALL drugs in 2020, Oregon fentanyl deaths increased by 1,500%. And the decriminalization band at the capital played on. When I started this one-woman microblog to carp about the Drug Policy Alliance and Oregon Measure 110 in early 2022, I felt like I was in a burning disco screaming fire while the promoters cranked up the music and kept passing out party favors.
I don’t feel that way anymore.
Staring down the barrel of a 2024 ballot measure, Oregon Democrats finally erected (minimal) guardrails around DPA’s drug decriminalization experiment; the DPA-backed District Attorney who campaigned as the “only Democrat” was replaced by Portland voters; and 100% of the counties in California voted to unwind DPA-backed drug reform implemented in 2014. The most liberal voters in the country have spoken. And they’re saying: when it comes to fentanyl: enough.
Oregon Measure 110
(Marijuana has been legal in Oregon since 2015 — this law decriminalized everything else.)
A 2020 ballot measure passed by voters decriminalized drugs in Oregon. The Drug Policy Alliance (from New York) spent over $5 million to pass it. Another entity called Arnold Ventures (from Texas) used intermediaries to funnel $700,000. The signatures gathered to put the measure on our ballots were taken by paid circulators. The votes to pass the law came from the density of the Portland Metro area.
Three people with deep DPA connections were able to utilize our lax citizen initiative process to present Oregonians with a vague drug decriminalization measure that was passed by voters & then whisked away to be tinkered with by the legislature behind closed doors.
DPA legislative allies claimed that by promoting drug decriminalization they were doing the voter’s will. That was disingenuous. Voters soured on decriminalization quickly after the 2020 election. We were used to pass a controversial law and then never given another vote.
“DPA has been on the ground in Oregon for more than 20 years, building relationships with local partners“
Oregon has a group of established activists with long-standing ties to DPA. A small, but influential network, these allies acted as drug policy gatekeepers in our legislature, Governor’s mansion and the Portland District Attorney’s office.
Measure 110 was propped up by a few people with a lot of power because Oregon is a one-party state. Democrats were able to bypass Republicans and control the legislative conversation around drug policy. The Oregon legislature revisited the law multiple times to further codify harm and waited three years to consider re-criminalization. Then, DPA allies presented the complex issue like a simple choice between wanton drug access or a return to the 1990s drug war.
This is a false choice because Democrats were MORE punitive than Republicans until the 2000s. Relationship building between DPA and the Democratic Party over the past twenty years quashed any return of crime bills as sponsored BY Democrats (Joe Biden, in fact) in the 1980s and 1990s .
The Shadow Party needs to cool it
Hat tip to John Judis and Ruy Teixeira for their illuminating book Where have all the Democrats gone? So much clicked into place for me with their introduction of the “shadow party“: the think tanks, foundations, donors, activists — “the Groups” — that influence political party priorities.
If you’ve ever felt the need to minimize a moral qualm to stay aligned with the Party, you’ve been impacted by envelope pushing from the Groups.
DPA is the Democratic “shadow party” driving the wedge between their agenda (harm reduction / decriminalization / individual right to consume drugs) and voter priorities (reducing addiction / reducing overdose / desiring drug-free public spaces). From a policy standpoint, the mess we are in has been driven by their ability to harness legal changes through ballot measures.
The full resources of the ACLU back up DPA with lawsuits and public pressure campaigns. From a cultural standpoint, despite reporting in their own newspaper, the editorial board at The New York Times platforms DPA-friendly opinions and messaging.
What’s mainstream on Main Street?
That depends on where you vote.
The reach of drug abuse’s adverse effects — measured by the increase or reduction of death, disease, crime and suffering — is driven by public policy. In Oregon (and California), drug policy has been controlled by Democrats who are under the influence of DPA and the ACLU.
Is it a coincidence that we also host a different caliber of drug-related behaviors? I’ve travelled a lot; I’ve seen many, many “main streets”. I’ve never witnessed human behaviors anywhere in the world equaling what I saw within a 5 mile radius of my home in Portland Oregon USA in the early 2020s at the peak of unregulated decriminalization.
Blood-curdling screams in no language except anguish, adult men and women with their pants down (not lewdly, just dissociated), pedestrians erratically entering roadways, people nodding off by freeway ramps, small groups in parking garages openly consuming street drugs, empty shopping malls overrun with drug dealing, dystopian encampments reminiscent of J.G. Ballard’s Concrete Island dotting both sides of the river.
There were several social media accounts sensationalizing the worst of it, but it was heavy shit.
Yes, it has been improving since 2024 (sort of). But we’re playing weak defense tolerating the ideological position of a state that does not grasp the need for her further intervention.
Needles and narcan aren’t a sufficient response to the opoid emergency
We’ve got to slow the inflow of fentanyl and we need to do everything to encourage people currently using it to quit and anyone who doesn’t not to start. In so far as fentanyl is being cut into other street drugs and increasing their risk, we should be advising folks to AVOID USING STREET DRUGS; not to “expect fentanyl“. Seriously, we have dispensaries littering the state with the most imaginative ways to consume cannabis products legally while generating tax revenue.
Elected officials also need to facilitate street-dealing meth use?
Lobbying for fentanyl access — which DPA, the ACLU and allied groups did twice in 2021 while Democrats controlled the White House and Congress — isn’t social justice. Street drugs have become so lethal since DPA started writing ballot measures, that facilitating their use today is closer to social malpractice.
DPA is staffed (and board-stocked) with dedicated people on a mission. The mission is to increase drug access, NOT to decrease addiction. Oregon continues to pay the price for this.
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