Four years ago, the state decriminalized all drugs. Now it’s trying to course-correct — and might make a mistake in the process.
In 2020, it looked as though the war on drugs would begin to end in Oregon.
After Measure 110 was passed that year, Oregon became the first state in the US to decriminalize personal possession of all drugs that had been outlawed by the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, ranging from heroin and cocaine to LSD and psychedelic mushrooms. When it went into effect in early 2021, the move was celebrated by drug reform advocates who had long been calling for decriminalization in the wake of President Nixon’s failed war on drugs.
Now, amid a spike in public drug use and overdoses, Oregon is in the process of reeling back its progressive drug laws, with a new billthat aims to reinstate lighter criminal penalties for personal drug possession. And while the target is deadly drugs like fentanyl, the law would also result in banning non-clinical use of psychedelics like MDMA, DMT, or psilocybin — drugs that are unconnected to the current overdose epidemic and the public displays of drug use.
Disingenuous attribution of a local environmental variable to a national crisis is pretty pathetic. Oregon isn’t even exceptionally high on the opiod death rate.
The dems here were more concerned about the upcoming election and the homeless/drug issues being blamed on them as a lot of locals like to do. This is yet another example of their so called ideals being sacrificed in order to maintain power. Now all that rehab funding that they never even began distributing ver the last four years will be going to police and jails.