Drug legalization not working out well at all in Oregon

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EUGENE, Ore.—Soon after Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs, Officer Jose Alvarez stopped arresting people for possession and began giving out tickets with the number for a rehab helpline.

Most of the people smoking fentanyl or meth on this city’s streets balled them up and tossed them onto the ground.

“Those tickets frankly seemed like a waste of time,” said Alvarez, who stopped issuing them a few months after the law went into effect.

Nearly three years into an experiment that proponents hoped would spark a nationwide relaxation of drug laws, many in Oregon have turned against the decriminalization initiative known as Measure 110, which passed with 58% support in 2020.

People sprawled on sidewalks and using fentanyl with no fear of consequence have become a common sight in cities such as Eugene and Portland. Business owners and local leaders are upset, but so are liberal voters who hoped decriminalization would lead to more people getting help. In reality, few drug users are taking advantage of new state-funded rehabilitation programs.

Change appears likely. A coalition of city officials, police chiefs and district attorneys recently called on the state legislature to recriminalize hard drugs. A measure to do so is in the works for next year’s ballot. A recent poll found the majority of Oregonians support the idea.

The fundamental problem, according to law-enforcement officers and researchers, is that the threat of jail time hasn’t been replaced with a new incentive for people struggling with addiction to seek treatment. Some 6,000 tickets have been issued for drug possession since decriminalization went into effect in 2021, but just 92 people have called and completed assessments needed to connect them to services, according to the nonprofit that operates the helpline. The only penalty for those who don’t call is a $100 fine, which is rarely enforced.

Before the law went into effect, people caught with small amounts of drugs were typically given a choice of court-mandated rehab or criminal sanctions such as jail time or probation.

“It was not a crazy thing to try at all, but I think they misunderstood addiction,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford professor who has studied the measure. “They really had the assumption that if you decriminalize, people would come rushing in saying, ‘Please, give me treatment,’ but addiction is not like cancer where people crawl through broken glass to get treatment.”

The number of fatal overdoses in Oregon during the 12 months that ended in May rose 23% from the same period a year earlier to 1,500, according to preliminary federal data. That is the third-highest increase in the nation, behind Washington and Nevada.