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The Economist magazine, a staunch advocate for more progressive drug laws and less incarceration, says Oregon’s experiment with decriminalization has started off poorly because overdose deaths have risen and treatment services are scarce, despite Measure 110′s promises.
“This newspaper has long championed more liberal laws, but before rushing ahead, reform-minded states—in America and beyond—would do well to consider the experience of Oregon, the only American state so far to enact decriminalisation,” The Economist wrote April 13. “It has had a rocky start.”
Voters passed Measure 110, the Drug Addiction and Recovery Act, in November 2020. It promised to create a fund, financed with cannabis tax revenue, to pay for new addiction recovery centers and to award grants to recovery programs run by people who have lived experience with drugs. Backers of Measure 110 looked to Portugal, which decriminalized drugs in 2001.
“In subsequent years, overdose deaths and HIV rates fell, and public drug markets disappeared,” The Economist wrote. “Oregon had hoped for a similar success. In the two years since the new law took effect, drug arrests are indeed down. However, overdose deaths in Oregon have risen sharply, far beyond the increase recorded nationally.”
The Economist didn’t provide those figures. The Oregon Health Authority says unintentional opioid overdose deaths totaled 280 in 2019, 472 in 2020, and 745 in 2021. Through May 2022, the latest figure available, unintentional opioid deaths totaled 332, OHA data shows.
It’s certainly true that drug-related deaths are increasing among Oregon teenagers faster than anywhere else in the nation, as The Lund Report revealed in WW’s pages last month. But that rise began well before voters approved Measure 110.
With the passage of Measure 110, possession of certain amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin or LSD is punishable with a fine of $100, which can be waived if the violator calls a health hotline to ask about treatment. Fewer than 5% of people receiving fines have made the call, The Economist said.
Because of bureaucratic delays in getting cannabis tax money to treatment providers, decriminalization preceded the disbursal of treatment dollars in Oregon by more than two years. That gap left drug users with carte blanche to consume whatever they wanted but gave them no new resources for treatment.
“It is better to adopt the sort of approach pioneered in Portugal, where people found with drugs have to appear before dissuasion commissions and are shepherded into treatment,” The Economist wrote. “The process is laborious, and that alone can discourage casual drug-taking.”
Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance, an organization that advocates for implementation of Measure 110, says The Economist is jumping the gun.
“The Economist reporter, like others, conflates correlation with causation, ignoring that overdoses have increased nationwide,” Hurst wrote in an email. “We can all acknowledge that implementing a transformational policy during a global pandemic has had its challenges. Even with all of the struggles, the initial data show we are making a huge difference here in Oregon: 60,000 services provided in 18 months; 160 addiction service providers funded across all 36 counties; and we are just getting started. Change takes time, and many Oregonians are already benefitting from this law.”