The Daily - Oregon Decriminalized Drugs. Voters Now Regret It.

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

In 2020, motivated to try a different way to combat drug use, Oregon voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs including fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine.Things didn’t turn out as planned.Mike Baker, a national reporter for The Times, explains what went wrong.Guest: Mike Baker, a national reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: Amid soaring overdose deaths, Oregon lawmakers have voted to bring back some restrictions.State leaders declared a 90-day state of emergency in central Portland in an effort to tackle fentanyl abuse.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Three years ago, Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs. Now, they're about to reverse course. Today, my colleague Mike Baker on what went wrong. It's Tuesday, March 12th. Mike, I want to begin with how and why the state of Oregon ever decided to decriminalize hard drugs,

the decision that really sets this entire story into motion. Yeah, I mean, if we go back five years ago, just before the pandemic, we can all remember the opioid crisis that was spreading across the country, and Oregon on its own was really struggling. Drug overdoses had been rising at quite an alarming rate. And the state ranked among the worst in access to drug treatment at the time. And as we know, arrest and jail have been a central strategy to combating drugs for decades. And for people in Oregon, they're looking around saying, this has not been working.

That model is broken. It's time for a new path. And one of the options that began to emerge was, is it time to decriminalize these drugs and focus on treatment? And there was already a roadmap that suggested decriminalization could work. Just explain that. Well, if you remember, Washington State in Colorado in 2012 legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Oregon legalized it shortly after in 2014.

And the states that followed that path, you know, they found a lot of success. They could get more tax revenue. They could reprioritize their law enforcement resources. They could deal with racial disparities that had been in the system for decades. There were a range of benefits all without the sort of doomsday scenarios that a lot of people had predicted would happen. Right, the sky did not at all fall, as some had feared when pot was decriminalized in any of these states.

Right, and now it's spread across the country. About half of states have legalized marijuana. And now, obviously, pot is not an opioid. Opioids are much harder drugs. But at a fundamental level, the motivation here is still the same, that jail is not the answer. And so people started to really coalesce around this idea.

It's a progressive state, and advocates saw a pathway to develop a plan and put it on the ballot for voters to consider. So that's how, in 2020, we found ourselves with this ballot initiative, Measure 110. Okay, so tell us about Measure 110. What's in it, exactly? The thrust of the measure is really to focus on stop treating drug addiction as a crime and start treating it as a health issue. And there are two parts of the plan. On one side, you would decriminalize possession like heroin and cocaine and fentanyl. And on the other hand of the initiative, you'd have these long overdue investments, hundreds of millions of dollars, in building out drug treatment services that the state had really been lacking. So as proposed, what happens when authorities in Oregon come across an addict who possesses a small amount of cocaine or fentanyl, for example? What's the envisioned process? If an officer comes across someone on the sidewalk using a drug, the goal was for that

officer to not arrest, but to issue a citation, the $100 fine. Instead of sending that person to jail, they could avoid that fine by calling a phone number, getting a health assessment, and potentially being directed into a treatment program that would serve them. So the thinking is nobody is going to want to pay that $100 fine, so somebody will instead call that number and enter this pipeline for treatment. Right. A small penalty, a big funnel to get people into treatment. And at the same time,

there's a ton of funding available to make this happen because the plan takes cannabis tax revenue that the state has been collecting and directs it into building out this treatment. So in a sense, one form of decriminalization of pot finances the cost of decriminalizing the other, which is hard drugs. You got it. And there's a lot of money behind the effort, and there's also a lot of powerful people.

The Drug Policy Alliance, which was a reform group backed by billionaire George Soros, contributed millions of dollars to lead the effort. The initiative also won funding from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. And it was winning big endorsements left and right. Everyone from the ACLU to the State Democratic, to the Oregon Nurses Association. And in Portland, the local district attorney, Mike Schmidt, the prosecutor who would handle drug crimes in the city, he comes out and says, you know, I think what we've been doing clearly has failed. He's

also in favor of Measure 110. Wow. Let's try something different. There was really sort of a groundswell of support that was building as the year went on. And in November 2020... And a first in the nation in Oregon. Oregon voters passed a groundbreaking drug law reform. Ballot measure 110 passes with 58% of the vote. I think this is a good thing because way too many people get locked up in America

for way too long. I mean, I view Oregon as a good thing because way too many people get locked up in America for way too long. I mean, I view Oregon as a very important and I'll say necessary lab experiment. So let's all watch. I mean, it's worth saying this moment is kind of a revolution in America's relationship to hard drugs. Absolutely. One advocate said that night that the results were like taking a sledgehammer to the cornerstone of the drug war. They really envisioned at that point that this was going to be the start

of a wave of legislation across the country. The first of many states to do this. Right. They envisioned movement in Washington state and Vermont and Maine and D.C. and then building up momentum towards an eventual ballot initiative in California. This was the start of a new wave of decriminalization. Okay. So what happens after Measure 110 is adopted by the voters in Oregon, and this new system is in place? So it rolls out in early 2021.

It's finally happening. Police, instead of arresting people, they start handing out these $100 citations. But the rollout's a bit rocky from the start. citations. But the rollout's a bit rocky from the start. Pretty soon it becomes clear that very few people are calling this state hotline to be guided into treatment. And over the following months and then years, what people see on the streets of Portland in particular, but also in other parts of Oregon, is a sense of lawlessness. This corner of Southwest 4th and Washington is in many ways a hub of downtown and one where the crisis on our streets is on full display. There's open drug use, people shooting up or cooking drugs on the streets.

Since the overdose, how many times have you smoked thus far? About 15 to 25 times today, and it's probably not even noon yet. You know, in portions of downtown Portland, it wasn't uncommon to see people really in the throes of crisis, screaming in the middle of the street. Back when I was homeless, it was brutal, but nothing like it is today.

Businesses were suffering. Many of them started hiring private security. You can't get a police response. If you try, you wait on hold for hours, only to be told just fill something out online and hope, and that hope is dead. People in Portland were complaining, like, this is getting worse. Overdoses in downtown Portland led to another loss of life on the sidewalk. People started to see overdoses around them on the streets. More people in downtown Portland are carrying Narcan on themselves just in case they encounter someone who's overdosed on the sidewalk.

It's just been just relentless. And through all that, the overdose numbers are surging upward. Opioid overdose deaths rose 50% in 2021, then another 30% in 2022. It's gotten so bad that in the county where Portland is, there are more deaths during the pandemic from overdoses than from COVID. And even for people who had supported this decriminalization movement, they're starting to rethink their position. Before long, there's a rising call in Oregon to get rid of Measure 110 altogether.

We'll be right back. We'll be right back. So Mike, as people start calling for Measure 110 to be rolled back, I'm wondering, were they right to point the finger at this law? Was Measure 110 really to blame for what was happening in Oregon? You know, it's really hard to say. The passage of 110 is happening at the same time that these other forces are sort of colliding in Oregon. You know, we have the pandemic,

which is contributing to societal struggles, exacerbating problems on the streets. We have fentanyl, which has been spreading around the country. It's particularly addictive. It's super cheap. It's deadly. And around the time that Measure 110 passed, it was really starting to surge in Oregon. And we have this other reality that Measure 110 was really supposed to be two parts. And while the decriminalization component had been put into place, the other half of the bill, the investments in drug treatment,

were still struggling to get off the ground. Just explain that. I mean, how much was it struggling to get off the ground? You know, the state agency that was in charge of organizing the effort of directing the tax revenue. It's also the same agency that was at the same time in charge of the state's COVID response and distributing vaccines at the time.

There were delays in organizing how that revenue was going to be distributed. And then later on, even when that money did go out the door, the drug treatment organizations that received it, they found themselves struggling to find workers to actually do the job. Right. Another way, perhaps, that the pandemic collides with all this. Right. And so you have these, you know, the decriminalization component may have happened just a few months after the bill was passed. But years after the bill was passed, there's still a fledgling effort to get these treatment programs the funding and the resources and the growth they need to actually have a powerful impact.

So there are a number of reasons you're saying why the problem of drug use and drug overdoses get worse in the aftermath of Measure 110. And one of them seems to be that the measure itself isn't really fully implemented, and that this essential half of it, treatment, doesn't really ever get up and running the way it was supposed to. So what people end up seeing on the streets there in a place like Portland is kind of one side of it, the permissive side of the law in the form of these desperate, drug-infused street scenes, but not much of the treatment side that was designed to treat it and prevent it. Yeah. And the researchers are looking at this and saying they can't find a link between the passage of Measure 110 and these rising

overdose numbers. But to a lot of voters, it doesn't really matter. And one thing that's really striking is how many progressives in the state really start taking the position that it's time to make major changes to this measure. Like who? Well, we have a new governor, a progressive, Tina Kotek. Voters did not vote to say it's okay to use drugs out in public. She had been supportive of the decriminalization component of Measure 110, but she starts promoting the idea of really being tougher on drugs,

that the sort of public drug use that people are seeing on the streets is not acceptable behavior. We don't allow it for alcohol. We don't allow it for marijuana. Why would we allow it for other types of drugs? So unintended consequence of 110 needs to get fixed. You know, another notable figure shifting on this issue is that local district attorney, Mike Schmidt in Portland. I do think that we need to take a hard look at open use on our streets. I think it's time to recognize that that doesn't make people feel safe. He now starts coming out to tell lawmakers that we really do need to have some sort of criminal penalty here to ban this public drug use we're seeing in the city.

So I think looking at open use on our street is another area where we should maybe look at changing the law a little bit. And as that shift is happening... We have new polling that reflects frustration. It's clear to everyone that voter opinion has shifted on this. 56% of Oregonians say enough is enough. Get rid of it already. And Democratic lawmakers, leadership, you know, they're starting to see the writing on the wall. So by last fall, just a few months ago, there's a bipartisan group of lawmakers saying that they're ready to pass legislation that would effectively

roll back Measure 110. And specifically, what would this legislation do and how would it do it? The bill proposed to recriminalize possession of hard drugs that could result in jail sentences of up to 180 days. But the measure is also designed to offer a whole range of opportunities for someone caught with drugs to avoid criminal penalties, to avoid a criminal record. The idea was that local law enforcement could potentially choose to take someone directly to treatment instead of to jail. For those who do end up within the court system, the hope was to create a whole range of off-ramps from criminal prosecution. Someone could request probation, complete treatment,

and then have the charges dismissed. Even those who sort of go through the treatment and stumble or they don't show up or they fail, they are offered additional chances along the way to get treatment instead of jail time. So it's not a total rollback and recriminalization, but it's a rollback and it is a form of recriminalization. That's right. And this sets off really some of the most emotional and personal debate you will ever see in a state legislature. Thank you, everybody, for being here today. This meeting is going to go until 9 o'clock tonight or until we run out of public testimony, whichever comes first. You have supporters of the rollback saying that decriminalization was a failure.

I've watched firsthand the crisis unfold outside my doors. Not only are most vulnerable populations dying in numbers we've never seen, but you've asked the community at large to normalize walking by dead bodies on the sidewalk. Normalize being chased by people high on meth wielding machetes. They're describing horrific scenes they've witnessed on the street. As a concerned father, I drive down Lancaster every morning to take my kid to school, and I see people in bus stops smoking fentanyl, and I see kids waiting to the side because they can't use the bus stops.

They're telling stories of family members struggling with addiction. One of my sons, Taylor Martinick, he died at the age of 24 due to a fentanyl overdose. They describe people who could not help themselves. When Taylor was using, he was in what we would call his drug brain. He wouldn't have made a decision to look at a card and call a treatment center. They really argue that there needs to be some sort of consequence in order to compel people towards treatment. I am about to celebrate five years clean in August. I have been through the system myself here in Marion County. I had about 15 years in and out of

Marion County Jail. One woman actually described her own personal story of addiction. And had it not been for the accountability piece when I did get clean almost five years ago and the fear of going back to prison and never seeing my son again. I wouldn't be sitting here today. She says the fear of going back to prison and not seeing her son was the reason that she was motivated to get clean. So these are members of the community, including former drug users, saying we think decriminalization has been a mistake because we need the deterrent of criminal charges. Yeah. And at the same time, opponents are also filling these hearing rooms. Many tonight have said that the status quo is

not working. And I agree. The status quo is not working because there aren't enough treatment beds available. People said all those treatment programs that were promised, they're still not in place. So while you can use whatever language you want in order to dress up what you're doing, the fact is what you're choosing to do is to place addicts in jail. And so even if you have a bill that says there are off ramps to get people out of jail and into treatment, those don't yet exist. And so people will be languishing in jail. Because people are still going to die. They're just going to die in jail cells instead of on a street corner. And people share, again, very personal stories.

As the eldest daughter of a woman who struggled with addiction almost my entire life and overdosed three years ago, I know firsthand the need for healing. Jail never worked for my mom. People describe stories of family members who had been addicted and gone through criminal convictions and prosecutions and found that it had not provided them help to get them out of

their struggles, but had rather prolonged them. As a mother, I have witnessed my son's struggle with opioid use disorder since 2008. I can say assuredly that the biggest barrier to stability my son has faced has been his involvement in the criminal justice system. And it left them with trauma and stigma of conviction and made it harder for them to find stability in housing or jobs. If drugs are recriminalized, all it would take is one momentary slip for his many years of hard work and progress to be lost. And opponents of the rollback, they're warning that the state is effectively on the path here to setting up War on Drugs 2.0. 50 years of the war on drugs has not fixed our addiction crisis. 50 years of disproportionately harming black and brown Oregonians. How will the solutions you are proposing be different? I heard a lot of people in 2020 say that they believe Black Lives

Matter, but you don't if you pass something like this. They're warning that the racial disparities are going to come back and it's going to upend lives. Thank you. Members, anything to add before we conclude? So what ends up being the final vote in the legislature? The bill passed pretty swiftly by wide margins in both the House and the Senate. And now Governor Kotak has signaled that she's ready to sign it. So Measure 110 is effectively dead now. That's right. And where, Mike, does that leave the broader movement that you described earlier as so excited about the passage of 110 in Oregon?

That advocate who said this was taking a sledgehammer to the old regime, the old war on drugs. I mean, what does this do to the hopes of decriminalizing hard drugs more broadly? I mean, this whole experiment in Oregon has really been quite a devastating setback to the decriminalization movement. You know, a lot of other states were watching Oregon to see whether it was a pathway to success, whether they could replicate the model, whether they should be the next ones to be decriminalizing in their state.

And now all of those seem to be off the table. You know, there are not lawmakers moving toward decriminalization, and same with voters. You know that ballot initiative that advocates had hoped to pass in California to decriminalize drugs this year. Now, instead, it's the opposite. Advocates are now facing the prospect of battling an initiative that would actually increase drug penalties. In cities all up and down the West Coast, there's sort of an effort to crack down once again. In San Francisco, we saw the mayor pressing to arrest drug users, saying that tough love is sometimes needed. Voters there last week approved a measure to require drug screening for welfare recipients.

Wow. That's the kind of policy we often see Republicans proposing, not people in a progressive city like San Francisco. Right. So there's been a major shift here that has served as quite the setback for people looking to end criminal penalties for those possessing drugs.

But Mike, because this was such a flawed rollout of Measure 110 in Oregon, it feels like it's hard to know whether this was a flawed idea. I mean, there's something a little bit tragic about it in that sense, because Measure 110 never really functions the way it was supposed to have. So we don't really have a model for a successful implementation of decriminalization and treatment of hard drugs upon which the public can judge whether the basic logic of this is sound, right? And instead, we're getting a backlash to a poorly executed version of this that has seemed to quash the entire project. Yeah, when I was down at the state capitol in recent days, I was talking to some lawmakers who said that given the lack of the state's treatment options back in 2020, Oregon was the worst place to try a decriminalization experiment. Hmm.

Some of those lawmakers hope that maybe one day, once the treatment programs are placed and they're working, maybe they could once again explore removing those criminal penalties. The argument here basically is that in an ideal world, somebody would execute a plan like Measure 110 as it was fully envisioned in a place that could support it, and then we could say whether, once and for all, this actually works or it doesn't.

Yeah, but it feels like it's going to be a long time before we get there again. Well, Mike, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. In defiance of their party's leader, Donald Trump, House Republicans are pushing forward with bipartisan legislation that would force the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell off the popular platform or face having it banned in the United States. Both congressional Republicans and Democrats argue that TikTok is a national security threat because of its ties to the Chinese government.

of its ties to the Chinese government. But Trump, who was highly critical of TikTok as president, now opposes the legislation, following a meeting a few weeks ago with a major TikTok investor. And an effort by the British royal family to defuse rumors about the health of Catherine, Princess of Wales, backfired on Monday when she was forced to acknowledge that she had digitally altered a photograph of herself and her children that was released over the weekend. Catherine, who had surgery in January, has not made any public appearances in months, setting off global speculation about her well-being. The release of the photograph appeared timed to address those concerns, until news agencies discovered it had been altered.

In a statement, Catherine apologized for manipulating the image. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Shannon Lin, and Summer Tamad, with help from Mujzadi. It was edited by Liz O'Balin, fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Mary Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.