This is interesting.
Firstly, I love that states inherently have the power to set their own laws. This allowed Oregon to be a great large scale experiment for drug policy.
I saw some interesting quotes:
But estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show, among the states reporting data, Oregon had the highest increase in synthetic opioid overdose fatalities when comparing 2019 and the 12-month period ending June 30, a 13-fold surge from 84 deaths to more than 1,100.
Despite public perception, the law has made some progress by directing $265 million dollars of cannabis tax revenue toward standing up the state’s new addiction treatment infrastructure.
I guess since only cannabis is sold, it’s the only taxable substance in the mix.
Some lawmakers have suggested focusing on criminalizing public drug use rather than possession. Alex Kreit, assistant professor of law at Northern Kentucky University and director of its Center on Addiction Law and Policy, said such an approach could help curb visible drug use on city streets but wouldn’t address what’s largely seen as the root cause: homelessness.
Homelessness leads to drug use? Or drug use leads to homelessness? Couldn’t it be either?
In the first year after the law took effect in February 2021, only 1% of people who received citations for possession sought help via the hotline, state auditors found.
Critics of the law say this doesn’t create an incentive to seek treatment.
Thoughts:
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Maybe just start with cannabis and see how that goes? Or do we really need to progress collectively to heroine, meth, cocaine, MDMA?
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Is the major public health crisis the use of more illicit drugs, or overdoses? Is possible that recreational use of cocaine/MDMA/others wouldn’t be as big of a crisis as meth and fentanyl?
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Should heroine be legal for use?
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Should MDMA be legal for use?
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Should cocaine be legal for use?
( I am not advocating for or against use of these substances with this post. Posted for discussion/interest. Questions are posed for discussion. )
A lot of good local articles on the topic, including radio pieces following cops in bad parts of town. A major failing of the program is that it was difficult to seek help even if you wanted to, with sometimes 1 hr phone wait times to set a time to wait an hour to talk to someone. The intent - to funnel users into treatment - wasn’t met.
A better method (in my opinion) would be a “treatment or jail” system, which would put people in a 6-week contained treatment system pre built with capacity to handle the load… Oregon may be liberal, but that would never fly, and the republicans would rather walk out and shut down the state house than allow it.
But we tried. Back ti letting everything fall apart until the state collapses.
I don’t understand why a treatment or jail program wouldn’t be desirable.
Cost? Wasn’t it potentially offset by cannabis taxes?
Capacity? Didn’t addicts already get locked up? Or maybe now there’s no capacity because the low level addicts have not been locked up and adjustments were made?