Measure 110 which decriminalized possession of drugs is a great libertarian ideal – the state has no business regulating what any individual decides to do with or put into their body. The social benefit, thought legislators, would be that the burden on the criminal justice system would be lessened and provide greater justice to racial minorities who are disproportionately arrested for possession.
The Economist first reported on Oregon’s experiment and provided Portugal as an examplar, but quoted a salient warning from Portugal’s National Coordinator for Drugs and Drug Addiction, “Decriminalising without doing anything else does not lead to any improvement of the situation.” Oregon legislators ignored the advice and moved with ready-fire-aim implementation. None of the warnings heeded nor support systems implemented:
He warns policymakers that any plan to decriminalise drugs must consider four factors: accessible treatment, prevention, harm reduction and reintegration. In Portugal, first-time offenders go before a panel at the Ministry of Health and receive a warning. Subsequent violations within five years of the first offence incur either a fine or other administrative sanction, such as community service. Punishment is individualised. Someone struggling with drug dependency may receive therapy, while a recreational user battling with depression may receive mental-health care.
Economist, Feb 13, 2021
Portugal has the advantage of being a sovereign country – Oregon forgot that it is not and Portland in specific became a Lorenzian attractor for addicts. The derelict non-contributors who flocked to downtown Portland are not all home grown.
Measure 110 became law on February 1, 2021 in the wake of the Floyd riots of 2020 and the defund the police outcry – inflamed by Jo Ann Hardesty. We now have a police force gutted by retirement, largely demoralized, and undermined by the DA (thanks for nothing Mike Schmidt). Any surprise that Portland has become an open air, use and abuse drug market?
Every day I walk our properties and see the impacts. I watch the fentanyl zombies with their tinfoil getting high in alcoves. They congregate in clumps and shuffle – it’s like walking through a set for The Last Of Us.
A week ago, I saw one of them frantically call out for naloxone to help a fellow zombie who had just overdosed. I watched some Good Samaritan actually look through his backpack to find some. It took a measure of will on my part not to stop him with a “Why bother?” Oregon is considering legislation to make Narcan easy to purchase to help reverse these overdoses. Why bother.
Legislators were reckless in allowing decriminalization of possession without guardrails around their public use (still a criminal act, just unenforced) and without a mandate for treatment for chronic abuse. Responsible adults should never be accountable for what they put in themselves in the privacy of their homes – but everyone on the streets of Portland has violated that civil contract. They have forsaken agency.
Reformers are incredibly dangerous in their righteousness. Yes, there were felony imprisonments, admittedly an inefficient outcome, but at least under criminalization, possession charges were a tool to force people into treatment in lieu of punishment. Now its a voluntary admittance which – shocker – hasn’t worked:
Trying to get people into treatment through citations does not work, says Keith Humphreys of Stanford University. Without meaningful pressure on drug addicts, he says, “there is no mechanism at all to get them to change their behaviour.” From the 4,000 citations issued in Oregon in the first two years of the policy, fewer than 200 people called the hotline and fewer than 40 were interested in treatment. It has cost taxpayers $7,000 per call.
The Economist, April 13, 2023
The problem remains a human one. Reformers assumed addicts could respond rationally to incentives. This is the same inane lack of understanding that leads the same type to believe that harsher gun laws will prevent incorrigibles from committing horrible murders. Limiting access to the means of destruction will not solve the behavioral impulse to commit the crimes.
You cannot legislate human behavior or its improvement. That takes true education.
Education: 1530s, “child-rearing,” also “the training of animals,” from French education (14c.) and directly from Latin educationem (nominative educatio) “a rearing, training,” noun of action from past-participle stem of educare (see educate). Originally of instruction in social codes and manners; meaning “systematic schooling and training for work” is from 1610s.
Protective Arts 