The old Prohibition joke is that the United States outlawed alcohol right when people needed a drink the most. It’s an ironic joke considering the last thing anybody needs when they’re going through a crisis of “Depression” is an addictive substance that alters your mental state.
Fast forward to 2020, when the state of Oregon repealed another prohibition of illicit drugs nearly 100 years later. Nine months into the pandemic, with its Measure 110, Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize the possession of drugs such as methamphetamines, heroin, LSD, Oxycodone, MDMA, Methadone, and Psilocobyn. Individuals caught with such drugs are now given a small fine and referred to drug addiction services rather than charged.
The theory behind the effort to decriminalize drugs is that it is the legal consequences of using drugs, not the drugs themselves, that ruin people’s lives. On the one-year anniversary of Measure 110, proponents of the legislation celebrated the “thousands of Oregonians … this year that have or will avoid the devastating life-long consequences of a drug arrest, that can include the loss of employment, educational opportunities, housing, public benefits, child custody and immigration status.” Advocates of the measure tend not to mention the devastating life-long consequences of using drugs, resting their argument instead on the notion that the costs associated with drug law enforcement — or the “war on drugs” — could be earmarked for use in harm reduction and addiction recovery services.
Only there’s a glaring problem: It’s not working. Oregon now has
