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The huge increase in overdose deaths in Oregon has had little to do with Measure 110, the 2020 referendum that decriminalized illegal drugs, and everything to do with the arrival of fentanyl, the souped-up opioid that makes heroin look like lite beer.
That’s what researchers at Brown University conclude in a new paper on Oregon’s overdose crisis, published in JAMA Network Open. A team led by Brown researcher Brandon del Pozo, who worked as a police officer for 23 years, plotted the percentage of fentanyl in drug supplies in 48 states against fatal drug overdoses there and determined that deaths were strongly correlated to the prevalence of fentanyl.
“It was a very tight relationship,” del Pozo said in a statement about the study. “The more fentanyl that was recovered and tested by the state, the higher the fatal overdose rate in that state.”
Fentanyl came along at exactly the wrong time for proponents of drug decriminalization. Measure 110 went into effect in February 2021, just as the drug swept into Oregon and “dominated the state’s unregulated opioid supply, increasing their risk of overdose,” the study says.
Bowing to public pressure, Oregon legislators re-criminalized drug possession this year, levying misdemeanor charges on offenders starting on Sept. 1.
Data from Washington State suggest that the move won’t curb overdose deaths, del Pozo’s team says. There, the state supreme court effectively decriminalized possession for four months in 2021, until the legislature enacted new laws.
“Our analysis of Washington State suggests that recriminalization in Oregon may not reduce the rate of overdoses observed in a state saturated with fentanyl,” the researchers say.