[HN Gopher] Oregon abandoned its drug law. Then came the mass ar...
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Oregon abandoned its drug law. Then came the mass arrests
Author : c420
Score : 25 points
Date : 2025-03-31 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| They realized that they don't stand a chance against the cartels,
| so they're trying to scare the populace instead.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| What? Scare the criminals breaking the law using drugs?
|
| Kinda what Cops are supposed to do? Should they say "please
| stop breaking the law" ?
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| The cops will enforce the laws. I'm talking about the
| lawmakers - decriminalization failed repealed because Oregon
| failed at stopping cartels. Whats the point of
| decriminalizing if it won't achieve the goal of reducing drug
| use?
|
| In order to stop drugs, you have to either kill supply,
| demand, or both.
| Spivak wrote:
| > if it won't achieve the goal of reducing drug use?
|
| If they tried decriminalization with the specific goal of
| reducing drug use then uhh yeah that was doomed from the
| start. You decriminalize certain drugs because you want to
| reduce possession/use arrests and view the treatment as
| worse than the disease. Arrests for use/possession serve
| one important function for people which is getting users
| out of public view even if it doesn't reduce drug use or
| work at all to get people off them. And Oregon found out
| how many people value clean streets at the expense of drug
| users. Can't really blame them.
| 9x39 wrote:
| I don't think the goal was to reduce drug use, it was to
| create a legal marijuana industry and reduce policing which
| was a broadly popular sentiment in 2020.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure_110,_Drug_Decriminal
| i...
|
| I don't have a copy of the original voters pamphlet with
| all the pro and against arguments, but I don't recall this
| ever being advertised as _reducing_ drug use.
|
| I think it did succeed in its goals of legitimizing
| marijuana in the state, and it did succeed in reducing
| police involvement in drug enforcement. Whether
| consequences emerged from these goals is another topic.
| verteu wrote:
| It doesn't seem like the law worked very well. Overdoses went up,
| and while this was largely due to covid & fent trends, it
| certainly was not an obvious success: https://imgur.com/a/45WAB6F
|
| https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.cfsecosystem.com/m110/Presen...
|
| https://www.rti.org/event/oregons-ballot-measure-110-symposi...
| zombiwoof wrote:
| I lost my job during Covid. I didn't start using meth or
| fentanyl
| verteu wrote:
| See also:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
| nxobject wrote:
| The article mentions a very important decriminalization-
| agnostic reason why no changes in outcomes were found within
| their analytic period: treatment took a really, really, really
| long time to set up, with funding only going out by the time
| decriminalization was rolled back. There was lack of capacity
| both in terms of staffing the actual programs, but as well in
| reviewing the programs.
|
| https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/14/oregon-drug-decrimina...
|
| Second, M110 funding comes from marijuana taxes, and a
| significant downturn in funding is anticipated this FY - I
| don't know the specific numbers, but it's on the magnitude of
| 25%. This is the context of the article's observations that
| treatment _still_ is impossible to find.
|
| As a result, I'd argue that Oregon's not going to see many
| changes in health-related outcomes.
| aredox wrote:
| It also didn't worsen things... There is no clear relationship
| between the passing of the law and any trend.
| 9x39 wrote:
| Homelessness went up, but counting them is hard, and
| untangling it from pure econ causes is also hard.
|
| This group claims PITC went up year over year. Surged, they
| said. https://www.dogoodmultnomah.org/homelessness-portland
|
| It would be hard to claim for Multnomah county residents to
| say things got better regarding the homeless situation after
| 2020, but the tide could have been coming in for multiple
| reasons.
| nxobject wrote:
| The direction of causation there is strange, too. COVID-19
| era eviction moratoria expired halfway through June, and
| records have consistently been beat since then. (There are
| also anecdotal rumors that people get bussed in from across
| the country. I think PIT count data collects that, but I
| need to double-check.)
|
| https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/29/oregon-housing-
| renter...
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Treatment doesn't help--it's not something that can be
| imposed. You force someone into drug treatment, you're either
| wasting your money or their money. Every immediate family
| member I have ever had has at least touched on handling
| addiction--and they have all been adamant that it's useless
| without the desire. "You want to want to quit smoking, but
| you don't actually want to quit smoking. I won't take your
| money when I know I can't help you. Come back when you truly
| want to quit smoking."
|
| But locking them up doesn't help, either, other than in
| locking them up when their drug use causes other problems.
| Same as drinking is legal but drunk and disorderly is not.
| timewizard wrote:
| > "Until the person truly wants to quit, they're not going to.
| Forcing people into treatment, it's against our will and unjust."
|
| I agree, but the policy should be, confiscation and destruction
| of drugs and no charges. Allowing dealers to take advantage of
| and profit off of a vulnerable is against the public will and is
| unjust.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Why aren't they making the laws harsher on dealers?
|
| No dealers no drugs
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The laws are plenty harsh for dealers.
|
| There's always new cannon fodder available to serve as first-
| line ablative customer service for the big suppliers.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Drug dealing basically works like a MLM the edges of the tree
| are easy to find and arrest but they are mostly easily
| replaceable young kids that putting them away does little to
| the overall flow.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| To me that's an argument for the gov't providing controlled
| doses that must be taken at the location.
|
| This undercuts the illegal drug economy, reduce theft and other
| related crime, as well as reducing risk of ODs as they'll get
| proper doses of good quality.
|
| That said, I'm not sure if ease of access will exacerbate the
| problem. Which would be an argument against.
| nxobject wrote:
| Canada has/had? a similar pilot program, but for alcohol use
| where you get a drink every hour: it might be a good
| comparison re: health outcomes alone. Let me find a link.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/26/homeless-
| she...
| sightbroke wrote:
| Why would the illegal drug economy ever let politicians that
| would implement this get into positions of power to do so?
| timewizard wrote:
| I think the legal drug economy has a hand in it as well.
| sightbroke wrote:
| Wouldn't they presumably be the ones selling crack, meth,
| heroin , etc to the government?
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yeah, we've seen that with alcohol. The bootleggers want
| dry counties, it's good for business. Bad for everyone
| else, though. (Yeah, even when quality isn't an issue. You
| see more DUI in dry counties.)
| howard941 wrote:
| This describes the methadone clinic model I remember from
| back in the 70s in NYC
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| I doubt you truly need the taken-at-location part other than
| for political acceptability. Sure, it's safer, but taken at
| location imposes a considerable burden upon the users.
|
| As for ease of access--the experimental data is limited but
| doesn't appear to show any big effects.
|
| The drug war imposes huge costs, though. My personal thoughts
| on this:
|
| 1) The date-rape drugs probably should be illegal or highly
| restricted.
|
| 2) The addictive drugs should be legal for adults.
| Experimental data will be needed to figure out if we need to
| make them prescription only--if a prescription requirement is
| imposed addiction should be considered a valid reason for a
| script and it should not involve the hoops that a controlled
| script currently entails.
|
| 3) The stuff that has little addiction potential should be
| legal for adults, period.
|
| 4) No advertising beyond simple price lists is permitted
| anywhere other than where you know the person has already
| indicated an interest in the substance. (Thus I would permit
| a cigarette company to freely tout their products behind a
| click-through--lots of adult websites do the sort of thing
| I'm thinking of.) Products are siloed--if you're looking at X
| you have not expressed an interest in Y. One business can
| sell multiple drugs but must silo them from each other. Ads
| can never chase you--once you have left the website consent
| no longer exists.
|
| 5) #4 also applies to tobacco and alcohol. The gas station
| can sell smokes but all the tobacco-related ads have to go.
| Many grocery stores already silo the alcohol and I haven't
| seen tobacco not siloed in a long, long time. (Smoke shops
| with the cartons laid out are siloed--it's just at the front
| door.)
| ein0p wrote:
| This creates a powerful incentive for the government to
| become a drug dealer and create more addicts to avail itself
| of more taxpayer money. See the homeless-industrial complex
| in SF, Seattle, and elsewhere. Billions disappearing into a
| black hole as the problem gets worse and worse.
| acidmath wrote:
| Many of the addicts are long past the mission of "trying to feel
| good" but are trying to stave off horrible withdrawal symptoms.
| Ibogaine clinics can help a lot of people. Ibogaine clinics don't
| work for everybody, and won't work for those who don't want to
| change their lifestyle, but can help bring back something
| resembling an okay life for a lot of people.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| This seems like a very expensive way to govern. Prison is not
| cheap.
| nxobject wrote:
| Someone attached to Oregon here - it isn't, and it's even
| harder to retain people at current pay grades in state
| corrections medical. (Let alone public defense, which the
| article mentions means that people are being let go in many
| counties before non-drug-related charges are tried.)
|
| https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/02/03/amid-mounting-...
| josefritzishere wrote:
| You inspired me to go looking for cost analysis. It's worse
| than I thought. Oregon is about 79k per year, per person,
| based on 2024 numbers in this pretty infogrpahic.
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cost-per-prisoner-in-us-
| sta...
| nathancahill wrote:
| This is the US in a nutshell. And then they wonder why the
| deficit is so high? Most expensive healthcare. Most expensive
| incarceration. Most expensive childcare. Most expensive
| infrastructure projects. Endless list.
| mindslight wrote:
| The "deficit" is high because USD is the world reserve
| currency, and the government policy is to prevent natural
| deflation. The "deficit" should really be called _the
| surplus_ as it represents the centralized gains of progress
| from everybody who is _still_ willing to invest in America
| despite that collection.
|
| The popular political movement aimed at reducing the
| "deficit" is really just part of the larger global movement
| to destroy the US's world leadership position, hence the
| related goal of ruining our relationships with our allies and
| whatnot.
|
| Having said that, I agree that the dynamic here is a horrible
| waste of resources. Housing someone in an SRO (single room
| occupancy) without guards would cost like one quarter of what
| jail/prison costs.
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