Different perspectives one year after Measure 110 took effect decriminalizing low-level drug possession in Oregon

Via an email with this press release from the Drug Policy Alliance, I received a reminder that today marks one year since the effective data of Measure 110, Oregon’s ballot initiative decriminalizing personal possession of all drugs.  The DPA release suggests there is much to celebrate on this anniversary:

While the robust support infrastructure is still getting off the ground, early results show over 16,000 people have already been able to access services. Additionally, there has been a nearly 60% decrease in the amount of people who have been arrested for any drug offense (approximately 3,700 drug offense arrests in the first 10 months after decriminalization took effect compared to over 9,100 arrests in the same 10-month period of 2020….

According to the first round of data from the Oregon Health Authority (based on grant reports from the Access to Care grants that went out last spring and summer — representing the initial $31.4 million previously mentioned — to 67 organizations and 11 tribes and tribal organizations), the funding has been used to:

• Provide grant funding to 67 harm reduction, treatment, housing, peer support and recovery organizations across 29 counties
• Provide funding to 11 Tribes and Tribal organizations through Tribal set aside
• Provide services to 16,000 people, 60% of which engaged with harm reduction services
• Hire 115 staff to provide a variety of health, harm reduction, treatment, housing and recovery services
• Purchase 12 vehicles to provide mobile health and harm reduction services
• Purchase three housing units – one motel, one duplex, and one gender and culturally-specific recovery house, plus 10 tiny houses
• Secure four leases on new facilities
• Purchase 154,535 harm reduction supplies
• Pay for four 24-hour peer support and crisis phone lines

This Filter article reports on the one-year anniversary in a somewhat similar vein under the headline “One Year on, Oregon Drug Decriminalization Is Boosting Harm Reduction and Housing”:

Housing is another particularly important need that Measure 110 is helping to address. “Not everyone’s going to get into residential treatment and not everyone needs residential treatment,” [Tera Hurst, executive director of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance] said. “Some people actually have better outcomes if you’re able to house them in their community and offer these ‘wraparound’ services.” 

Hurst acknowledged Oregon’s huge task of setting up the behavioral health resource network in 2022.  But advocates like her are also on the defensive — already, state lawmakers are making plans to take money allocated for expanding services and spend it instead on more police.

Challenges and battles remain, therefore.  But thousands of people in Oregon, whether receiving services or avoiding arrest, have already felt benefits from Measure 110. And with major funding soon to be rolled out, many more positive impacts are expected in 2022.

But some other media sources have a somewhat different perspectives on how things are going in Oregon.  This local press piece, headlined “As Meth and Fentanyl Tighten Their Grips on Oregon, the State Scrambles to Implement Treatment Services: Measure 110 will provide a massive infusion of new money but overdose deaths are skyrocketing,” provides some sobering statistics:

The good news, Oregon State Medical Examiner Dr. Sean Hurst recently told lawmakers, is that the jump in Oregon’s alcohol-related deaths in 2020 flattened in the first half of 2021. The bad news: Drug overdose deaths, particularly those involving fentanyl and methamphetamine, soared to new highs.

Deaths attributable to meth jumped from 2019 to 2020, and are on pace for a bigger increase in 2021, Hurst told lawmakers Jan. 13. Though slightly less numerous, fentanyl-related deaths are rising much faster: They more than doubled from 2019 to 2020 and are on pace to rise steeply in 2021.  Together, medical examiner figures show, the two drugs will account for the deaths of more than 1,000 Oregonians in 2021 — that’s nearly three per day. “Substance use disorder is prevalent and it’s everywhere,” says Tony Vezina, chairman of the Oregon Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission.

Hurst presented his dismal news on drug deaths as the state races to implement Measure 110, the 2020 ballot measure that forced two major policy shifts.  It decriminalized the possession for personal use of many hard drugs, including heroin, meth, cocaine and some opioids. Measure 110 also shifted funding from Oregon’s cannabis taxes — well over $100 million a year — to fund new referral and treatment services for substance use disorder….

The idea was that those cited for possession could avoid a fine by calling a phone number on their ticket; that connection would open a gateway to evaluation and services—and get up to $100 of their fine waived. Data collected by the Oregon Judicial Department from February 2021 through Dec. 31, however, shows that avenue has not worked. Police wrote 1,826 tickets last year for hard drugs (nearly two-thirds for meth) but few — only 55 for the whole year — prompted users to telephone the number for services.

Advocates of Measure 110 say it will take time for the benefits to become apparent, as was the case in Portugal, which decriminalized hard drugs in 2001 and saw its overdose death rate plummet — but only after services were in place.

Tera Hurst, executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance (and no relation to the medical examiner), says voters signaled they wanted an explicit shift away from treating people with substance use disorders as criminals and to instead direct energy and money toward treatment.  She says it’s unsurprising that citations are not driving drug users to seek help. She and other advocates did not expect they would. Even arrests rarely motivated users to seek treatment, they say — most go only when they are ready.

This other local press stories also set forth distinct perspectives on drug-related challenges in the Beaver State:

“Oregon is No. 2 in nation for addiction, last on access to treatment“

“Oregon’s drug decriminalization measure fails to fund treatment“