Drug recriminalization could signal cultural shift in progressive state, Portland trial attorney says

A Portland trial attorney said Oregon lawmakers' decision to recriminalize drugs could signal a sea change in the deeply blue state.

"It's not progressive to just let people rot in gutters," Kristin Olson, trial attorney and host of the Rational in Portland podcast, told Fox News. "Intervention had left the building. Intervention is now back, and I think that's a big deal."

A woman and her boyfriend prepare to smoke foils of fentanyl on Jan. 23, 2024, in downtown Portland. Oregon voters chose to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs in the November 2020 election. Three years after the trailblazing law took effect, lawmakers have made drug possession a crime again. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

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Oregon became the first (and only) state in the nation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs in early 2021, after 58% of voters approved Measure 110. But as overdose deaths and open-air drug use soared, numerous polls showed Oregonians souring on the law, which many believed would lead to increased treatment for addiction.

Instead, the vast majority of those given a $100 ticket for drug possession simply threw the ticket — and phone number for an addiction treatment hotline — away.

House Bill 4002 creates a new misdemeanor drug possession charge and gives those caught with small amounts of substances like meth and fentanyl a choice: undergo treatment or go to jail for up to six months. Treatment includes a behavioral health screening and participation in state-funded deflection programs.

Numerous surveys show Oregonians support re-criminalizing hard drugs and making treatment mandatory, not voluntary, in order to avoid jail time. (Ramiro Vargas/Fox News Digital)

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Those convicted of possession could also get their record automatically expunged.

Republicans and Democrats originally proposed competing bills, but the final legislation struck a compromise between the two and sailed through both chambers last week.

"I'm impressed, actually, with the Oregon Legislature," Olson said. "I really didn't think they were going to compromise on anything."

The same legislature has green lit "pretty far left policies" in recent years, Olson said, such as allowing minors to undergo sex reassignment surgery or get an abortion without their parents' consent. A bill passed in 2021 required schools to provide free tampons in all bathrooms, regardless of gender.

So dialing back the nation's most progressive drug law is "a huge success," Olson said.

"It shows that the Overton window has shifted and the silent majority is silent no longer and the legislature is actually listening to us," she added.

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The George Soros-backed Drug Policy Alliance, which poured millions of dollars into the campaign for Measure 110, blasted lawmakers for blaming the law "for their failures to address the housing crisis," overdoses and other "public suffering."

"Recriminalizing drugs won't solve the devastating public suffering crisis in OR," the alliance wrote on X. "Instead, it’s likely to increase preventable overdose deaths & expand racial disparities in incarceration rates, making it harder for Black, Brown, & poor communities to access life-saving services."

The Drug Policy Alliance did not respond to requests for an interview.

The state's ACLU said "lawmakers knowingly took us backwards" by choosing "to send our most vulnerable neighbors to jail instead of treatment," and an Oregon nonprofit supporting incarcerated people has already warned it may go to court to block the bill.

Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has not said whether she plans to sign the legislation, though she previously stated she was open to recriminalizing drugs as long as the legislature's main focus was on expanding treatment options.

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While many lawmakers blame Measure 110 for the staggering rise in overdose deaths in Oregon, researchers, including Dr. Alex Kral from RTI International, found no connection. Oregon's spike in overdose deaths coincided with the arrival of fentanyl on the West Coast around 2018, and the start of the coronavirus pandemic — and lockdowns — in 2020. 

"From a scientific perspective, it certainly seems like M110 hasn’t made things worse with crime or overdose deaths," Kral told Willamette Week.

Reported drug overdoses rose more in Washington (38.27%) than in Oregon (32.85%) from September 2022 to September 2023, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Olson acknowledged that it's difficult to determine the impact of Measure 110 on overdose deaths, but said the law had a devastating effect on families of drug addicts as well as public safety and livability.

"We normalized the public smoking of fentanyl," Olson said. "My children are 10 and 12 and they know what fentanyl smells like."

A police officer holds a container with a small amount of suspected fentanyl powder in Portland, Oregon. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)

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Olson said she thinks it will "take time" to see any effects from the new law, noting the ongoing shortage of police officers in Portland, where the drug problem is most apparent. But she's optimistic about what she sees as a new trajectory for the state.

"I think Portlanders are done with all of those kinds of [far left] policies," she said. "Oregonians are done with those kinds of policies. We're recriminalizing drugs. … We're hiring all the police officers we can get our hands on."