A November ballot initiative would decriminalize drug possession and build a treatment program outside of the criminal justice system.
Nearly two people die every day from drug overdoses in Oregon. One out of 11 Oregonians suffer from addiction. The state also ranks last in the nation among states in access to drug treatment and recovery services for adults, according to a federal government survey on national drug use.
The decriminalization of drugs in Oregon would mark a significant shift toward ending the nation’s half-century war on drugs, which is largely waged to the detriment of Black, Latino and other minority communities. One of the demands of the Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has been the restructuring of the relationship between the police and communities of color.
The initiative was initially conceived under the shadow of a dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths related to the opioid and methamphetamine crises in the past 20 years. The national drug overdose death rate more than tripled from 1999 to 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — yet another example of the country’s failed policy of criminalizing drugs.
But in the United States, the problems of drug criminalization and enforcement do not just have negative consequences for public health by failing to adequately provide treatment to addicts. Bobby Byrd, a Black resident of Portland, Oregon, was arrested 26 years ago for possession of cocaine. He had suffered problems with cocaine addiction since he was a teenager. He was in the middle of a relapse when he went to a strip club in Northeast Portland known for drug sales after work one day and police arrested him.
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