One Year Ago Oregon Decriminalized All Drugs & Thousands of Lives Have Been Saved with Help Not Handcuffs

In November 2020, in a near-landslide, Oregon became the first state in history to decriminalize all drugs, including hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, and meth. Showing the will of the citizens, the vote passed with 59% of voters in favor.

The following February, the new law went into effect. The “Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act” began to transition Oregon’s drug policy from a punitive, criminal approach to “a humane, cost-effective, health approach.”

It has been a year since this bill was passed and much to the chagrin of the drug warrior class, Oregon is boasting some very positive numbers.

“A year ago, Oregonians voted yes on Measure 110 to remove criminal penalties for possession of drugs and expand access to health services. Now, because of this measure, there are thousands of people in Oregon that will never have to experience the devastating life-long barriers of having a drug arrest on their record, which disproportionately and unjustly affected Black and Indigenous people due to targeted policing. Because of this measure, there is more than $300 million in funding that did not exist before being funneled into community organizations to provide adequate and culturally competent care that people desperately need,” said Kassandra Frederique, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “And while the devastation of 50 years of cruel and counterproductive policies can’t be erased overnight, by all metrics we hoped to achieve, and what voters asked for, we are going down the right path.”

Instead of spending countless millions locking people in cages for addiction, the state moved to allocate those funds toward programs to help addicts get clean. It costs far less money to treat a drug addict in a health services environment than it does to lock one up for two years. The state also raises money from the sale of marijuana to fund the programs as well.

This savings and marijuana revenue is being allocated to services that will allow addicts to receive the help and treatment they need instead of the barrel of a gun they received before. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, in only a year, 70 organizations in 26 out of Oregon’s 36 counties have already received funding for these services listed below:

33 harm reduction and addiction recovery service providers expanded access to treatment services for indigent, uninsured individuals.
52 organizations hired peer support specialists — a role that addiction medicine experts have long heralded as essential to one’s recovery journey.
32 service providers added recovery, supportive and transitional housing services.
30 organizations increased harm reduction services, which include life-saving interventions like overdose prevention; access to naloxone, methadone and buprenorphine; as well as drug education and outreach.

What’s more, by removing criminal penalties for possessing substances deemed illegal by the state, there are approximately 9,000 Oregonians (based on prior arrest data) this year that have or will avoid the devastating life-long consequences of a drug arrest, that can include the loss of employment, educational opportunities, housing, public benefits, child custody and immigration status, according to the DPA.

As TFTP reported at the time, last year, dozens of district attorneys stood against the bill, claiming that the measure “recklessly decriminalizes possession of the most dangerous types of drugs (and) will lead to an increase in acceptability of dangerous drugs.”

However, they are either lying or haven’t paid attention to other countries who have passed similar measures and have watched drug use and crime decline.

One of the most famous success stories is from Portugal who decriminalized all drugs in 2001. This never lead to an increase in drug use, but did result in a dramatic reduction of pathologies associated with drug use, such as sexually transmitted diseases and overdose deaths, according to a 2009 Cato Institute study.

A 2015 European Drug Report also found that Portugal’s drug overdose death rate is five times lower than the European Union average.

Imagine that.

The reality of America’s war on drugs is that it is not based on scientific evidence. Instead, it is based on a dark history of oppression, racism, and political corruption.

In spite of some form of cannabis being legal in some fashion in well over half the country, the government still violently and with extreme prejudice continues to seek out those who dare possess it.

If the CDC calculated the number of deaths inflicted by police while enforcing marijuana laws, that number would certainly be shocking and could even be deemed a risk to public health. Marijuana is, indeed, dangerous, but only because of what can happen to you if the police catch you with it.

Nothing highlights the hypocrisy, immorality, and sheer idiocy of the drug war quite like marijuana prohibition. Here we have a medicine that saves the lives of countless epileptic children, heals broken bones, relieves pain, treats PTSD, has never killed anyone, and exhibits a variety of other incredible benefits – yet the state will kill you over it.

Hopefully, this is a sign that the times are changing. Hopefully, this newfound funding isn’t used to create a bureaucracy larger than the drug war itself that farms addicts for repeat funding, instead of helping them recover through treatment. Hopefully.

Source: The Free Thought Project

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