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Policy wonks and politicians are weighing whether Oregon should recriminalize drug possession or otherwise tweak Measure 110, but they’re working with incomplete data because the Oregon Health Authority has not produced a report it had promised after a January audit by the Secretary of State’s Office.
The audit of the 2020 measure concluded that a “lack of clarity” about roles and responsibilities for drug treatment had “contributed to delays, confusion, and strained relations” between OHA and the volunteer Oversight and Accountability Council, which awards more than $100 million annually in cannabis tax revenue to recovery organizations, with help from OHA.
More broadly, auditors wrote, “without sufficient data collection and reporting, it will be impossible to effectively measure the outcomes and effectiveness of M110.”
Prodded by auditors to remedy that, OHA agreed to “publish a plan by September 2023 for how the M110 program integrates into the overall behavioral health system in Oregon.”
That report is overdue. The reason? Spokesman Dean Carson says is working on two, more extensive, studies of the behavioral health system that will be completed by next summer.
“The deadline was adjusted in collaboration with auditors at the Secretary of State’s office to incorporate the additional information that is being generated by the new studies, which will provide important data that will shape Oregon’s substance use treatment strategy,” Carson said in an email. “State health officials look forward to sharing preliminary data in coming weeks,” Carson says in an email.
The report would have come in handy this week as the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Interim Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response mulls whether to amend Measure 110 when lawmakers meet in February. Critics, many of whom blame the measure for an uptick in brazen fentanyl use on Portland’s streets, have filed ballot initiatives to overturn it if legislators don’t act.