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Patrick T. Fallon

Oregon lawmakers have voted to roll back the state’s drug decriminalization measure, which was hailed as a pioneering approach to addiction but faces intense backlash as communities grapple with surges in fentanyl use and overdoses.

The Oregon Senate on Friday voted to again make possession of a minor amount of drugs a misdemeanor. The 21-8 vote came one day after the House of Representatives voted 51-7 to approve the legislation. Passed with bipartisan support, the bill heads to the desk of Gov. Tina Kotek (D), who has <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/31/drug-recriminalization-oregon-kotek-fentanyl/" target=_blank>suggested</a> she may sign the legislation.

Oregon’s troubled implementation of Measure 110 has elicited intense debates over drug policy, public safety and justice — and sowed divisions among community members, activists and political leaders in a state controlled by Democrats. The tension over Measure 110, approved by voters more than three years ago, reflects wider, politically charged questions about what role law enforcement and courts should play in the nation’s drug crisis.

“Unfortunately, in the history of drug policy, Oregon’s Measure 110 will go down in the lessons learned — rather than the lasting innovations — category,” said Brandon del Pozo, a Brown University drug policy researcher who spent more than two decades as a police officer.

Backed by the reform organization Drug Policy Alliance, Measure 110 was lauded as an innovative public health approach and a rejection of the failed war on drugs that for decades disproportionately sent people of color to prison. Supporters were inspired by <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/18/oregon-measure-110-portugal/" target=_blank>Portugal</a>, which in 2001 decriminalized certain hard drugs and is seen as a model for a public-health-first approach to drug use.

Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

Nearly 60 percent of Oregon voters approved the measure in November 2020, as national calls for justice reform mounted after the police murder of George Floyd. U.S. fatal drug overdoses were also skyrocketing.

Measure 110 eliminated criminal punishment for possession of minor amounts of drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. Instead of taking suspects to jail, officers now hand users $100 citations — which can be waived if they call a state-funded hotline and enroll in an assessment for treatment. The law, which went into effect in February 2021, allocated hundreds of millions in marijuana tax revenue to bolster services for people suffering from addiction.

But Oregon had underinvested in behavioral health services for decades, leading to a dearth of providers for drug users who were meant to benefit from Measure 110, said addiction doctor Andrew Mendenhall, CEO of Central City Concern, a Portland social services nonprofit. State officials said that in 2020, when the measure passed, Oregon ranked last in the nation for providing access to substance use disorder treatment. State auditors also raised <a href="https://sos.oregon.gov/audits/Pages/audit-2023-03-measure-110.aspx" target=_blank>concerns</a> about the Oregon Health Authority’s management of grants meant to bolster addiction services and groups that work to reduce the harm of drugs.

Those grants are finally flowing, but it will take years to build up the treatment workforce and infrastructure, Mendenhall said. “It’s going to take awhile in a community where people have grown impatient — there is a significant amount of compassion fatigue,” Mendenhall said.

Frustrated police officers have handed out thousands of citations, but the <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/02/measure-110-helpline-still-barely-rings-but-it-costs-a-lot-more.html" target=_blank>hotline</a> has been little used.

“Even as it destroys your life, fentanyl use feels so good in the short term that many people won’t try to give it up without the external pressure that Measure 110 eliminated,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychiatry professor and former White House drug policy adviser.

Illicit fentanyl was among the confluence of factors that hampered Measure 110 from the start. The deadly drug, which can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin, proliferated on the West Coast later than in regions on the other side of the country, said Alex H. Kral, an epidemiologist who studies drug use and policy at the nonprofit research institute RTI International.

“At the exact time as Measure 110 was starting is when people were figuring out they could smoke fentanyl, and it was readily available and people started overdosing,” Kral said.

Oregon recorded 1,387 drug overdose deaths in 2022, an increase of nearly 160 percent from five years earlier, according to federal data. One study, however, <a href="https://nyulangone.org/news/decriminalizing-drug-possession-not-linked-higher-overdose-death-rates-oregon-or-washington" target="_blank">found no evidence</a> Oregon’s overdose death rate after Measure 110 was higher than in similar states experiencing surges in such fatalities.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> pandemic also stretched health-care services and exacerbated mental health illnesses. Housing costs skyrocketed, leading to more homeless people unsheltered on the streets. That has fed an outsize perception of open-air drug use in cities such as Portland, said Marisa Zapata, director of Portland State University’s Homelessness Research &amp; Action Collaborative.

Cause of death: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

Many members of the public squarely blame Measure 110 for spikes in petty crime and open-air drug use in Portland.

At the Cheerful Tortoise bar downtown, owner Amy Nichols said that since the measure passed, people high on drugs often enter and yell at customers, or use fentanyl in the bar’s alcove, littering the grounds with paraphernalia. She’s installed locks on the bathroom to keep them out.

“We’ve found four or five people that have passed out and [employees] called 911,” Nichols said in an interview. “They still had needles hanging out of their arms.”

Amid the headlines about drug use, elected leaders in some Oregon counties passed measures calling for Measure 110’s repeal. A coalition of political and business leaders <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2024/02/opinion-fix-measure-110s-flaws-now-so-voters-wont-have-to-in-november.html" target=_blank>filed</a> initiatives to allow voters to “fix and improve” Measure 110, an effort buoyed by polling indicating Oregonians no longer supported decriminalization. In January, alarm about the toll of fentanyl prompted local and state leaders to <a href="https://www.oregon.gov/newsroom/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?newsid=215211" target=_blank>declare</a> a 90-day state of emergency for downtown Portland.

Under the legislation passed this week, possession of drugs will become a misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail or 18 months of probation. It also “encourages” police officers and district attorneys to refer defendants to state-funded “deflection” programs that could get them into treatment instead of facing arrest or conviction. Judges can’t order fines or fees as part of the sentence. The state is also providing grants for medication-assisted opioid addiction treatment within jails, among other provisions geared toward addressing addiction.

Rep. Jason Kropf (D), who introduced the bill, said the legislation has “reimagined” the misdemeanor drug criminal charge. “We are telling law enforcement, you need to strengthen your partnerships with your treatment community and your behavioral health community,” he said in an interview.

Officials estimate the law will eventually add about 2,257 convictions for misdemeanor drug possession a year to Oregon’s justice system, with Black and Hispanic defendants represented at a disproportionate rate.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, the Urban League of Portland and the Health Justice Recovery Alliance gathered this week to <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/26/oregons-drug-recriminalization-bill-nears-vote-as-debate-rages/" target=_blank>accuse state Democrats</a> of pushing the legislation for political gains.

“It’s easier for the legislature to blame and stigmatize and disappear people into jails than to fix the problem they had a hand in creating,” Emily Kaltenbach, the Drug Policy Alliance’s senior director of state advocacy, said in an interview.

Hundreds of written testimonials — for and against the bill — were submitted<b> </b>ahead of a House committee hearing Monday. At a hearing that stretched more than<b> </b>four hours, critics decried a return to an arrest-first approach that they said will strain courts already reeling from a lack of publicly funded defense attorneys. Meli Rose, a former user who spent time behind bars, told lawmakers that conditions in Oregon jails are harsh and that many people use drugs to deal with personal traumas.

“Adding to their traumatic history by doing a sentence of up to as many as 180 days for drug possession is a disservice to what we are trying to accomplish,” said Rose, director of operations at the recovery nonprofit Iron Tribe Network in Gladstone, a Portland suburb.

The bill had plenty of supporters at the hearing, including families who’d lost relatives to fatal overdoses. Business owners, police officials and district attorneys said that the legislation still prioritized treatment but that the threat of jail time was important.

Hank Crapser, a drug counselor who works with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, told lawmakers he sees children unable to use bus shelters because users occupy them to openly smoke fentanyl. A former drug user who spent 16 years in prison, Crapser said that many people struggling with addiction won’t seek treatment without criminal justice intervention.

“That accountability is what’s missing out there — that nudge from a judge,” Crapser testified.

David Ovalle

Oregon lawmakers vote to roll back drug decriminalization

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