Leftist Utopia: Oregon's "Soft" Stance On Hard Drugs Has DEVESTATING Consequences (Video)

By Mark Whittington | Tuesday, 20 December 2022 12:00 PM
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Leftist Utopia: Oregon's "Soft" Stance On Hard Drugs Has DEVESTATING Consequences (Video)

Libertarians and others have long believed that if the United States were to decriminalize drugs, meaning everything, including heroin and meth, many of the problems related to drug addiction would go away.

The idea that drug addiction should be treated solely as a healthcare problem is a beguiling one.

Fox News reports that Oregon is trying that idea out. Two years ago, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of what is considered “hard drugs,” i.e., those that are very addictive and often very deadly. The tax money derived from the sale of marijuana was diverted from law enforcement to addiction services.

However, things have not quite turned out as the decriminalization advocates expected. Overdose deaths have skyrocketed in Oregon. Very few addicts, when caught with hard drugs, have taken advantage of the addiction treatment services that the state has made available.

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Hannah Studer, deputy director of the behavioral health nonprofit Bridges to Change, claims that not enough time has passed for the new drug regime to work. She said, “It’s going to take a long time to fully see what’s happening, We have to stay the course because this is life and death and this really is building an entirely new future for the state that the state deserves.”

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David Potts, chair of the Lents Neighborhood Livability Association, is pretty sure that Measure 110 is a failure. He said, “It’s worked out great for the drug dealers and the drug users because we have an open-air drug market.”

Police are confident that the problem is that treatment is optional for people who are caught with drugs such as meth and Fentanyl. Possession of personal amounts of drugs is a Class E violation, punishable by a $100 fine. The fine will be waived if the perpetrator agrees to seek treatment.

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Oregon Health & Science University’s head of addiction medicine, Dr. Todd Korthuis, suggests that very few people are taking the treatment option. “Only 1% of those issued a ticket for drug possession requested information about treatment resources. In my discussions with treatment leaders around the state, not one has had any patient enroll in treatment due to these tickets.”

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Ron Williams, director of outreach for the Health Justice Recovery Alliance and a supporter of Measure 110, disagrees with Korthuis. He said, “There’s very little evidence that coercive treatment works. Most people who use drugs recreationally don’t think they have a problem and thus don’t think they need treatment. So why would you force them into treatment?”

Studer urged patience for the new approach to work, which she suggested will take time and eventually work better than the old law enforcement method of dealing with drugs.

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