Law Oregon just voted to decriminalize all drugs - Oregon voters have taken a big step toward ending the war on drugs.

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Oregon just voted to decriminalize all drugs
Oregon voters have taken a big step toward ending the war on drugs.

Oregonians have made their state the first in the United States to decriminalize use of all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, after voting to approve Measure 110, according to the New York Times and the Associated Press.

The approval of the measure, one of several drug-related initiatives on the ballot November 3, doesn’t mean that the state has legalized the drugs.

Instead, Oregon will remove criminal penalties — including prison time — for possessing small amounts of currently illegal drugs, and will give those caught with drugs the option of either paying a $100 fine or getting a “completed health assessment” at an addiction recovery center. The sale of drugs will still be illegal, so don’t expect stores or pharmacies selling cocaine or heroin to pop up (at least legally).

The state will also now redirect existing marijuana sales tax revenues and savings from the measure — for example, savings from reduced prison time — toward setting up a more expansive drug addiction treatment and recovery program.

Advocates say Measure 110 replaces a criminal justice-centered approach to drugs with a public health one
Supporters of decriminalization argue that drug misuse and addiction are public health issues, not problems for the criminal justice system. They claim that criminal prohibition leads to hundreds of thousands of unneeded, racially disparate arrests each year in the US. And that this is a costly endeavor, straining police and contributing to mass incarceration, that does little to actually help people struggling with drug use.

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Live results for Oregon’s drug decriminalization ballot measure
It would be better, these advocates say, to put all that money toward education, treatment, and harm reduction services. And to the extent that drug use does contribute to crime and violence, there are other laws in place, including for drug trafficking, that can cover those issues without making possession itself a criminal offense.

Opponents argue that decriminalization removes a powerful deterrent to trying and using drugs, potentially fueling more drug use and addiction. They claim criminal penalties attached to drug possession can also be leveraged — through, say, drug courts — to push people into addiction treatment they otherwise wouldn’t accept. And they argue that to the extent there are real racial disparities in such arrests, that’s a problem with bias in law enforcement and systemic racism across American society in general, not necessarily a result of drug prohibition itself.

Some critics also questioned if the ballot initiative’s reallocation strategy will really direct sufficient funding to addiction treatment. The campaign in support of the measure claimed, citing state analyses, that it would in effect quadruple state funding to recovery services.

Oregonians previously legalized marijuana. Although some states have ended felony charges for use of all illegal drugs, Oregon is the first in the US to take the more aggressive step to decriminalize them.

But Oregon isn’t the first place in the world to decriminalize drugs. Portugal did it in 2001, earning a lot of continued media coverage (including at Vox). The effects seemed, on net, positive: Coupled with boosts to drug addiction treatment and harm reduction services, drug decriminalization seemed to lead to more drug use overall but less problematic use.

Citing Portugal’s model, critics of the war on drugs have long clamored to bring the model to the US. With Oregon’s vote, they now have a launching pad — one to not just prove that the idea can work in the US, but also to maybe inspire other states to take more aggressive steps toward ending their drug wars.

For more on Oregon’s Measure 110, read Vox’s explainer.
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Buttigieg2020 said:
Time to move to Oregon and do my government approved amount of cocaine
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You joke, but I was kind of wondering if this might in fact happen.

I also can't seem to find anything from Oregon law enforcement about this. Seems like either they went silent or my google-fu isn't up to the task.
 
I voted against this even though I'm pro-legalization. Voters were mislead about the fact that it removed funding for schools and police and won't actually increase in-patient treatment capacity at rehab clinics. It's a massive subsidy for "assessment and referral centers," which there was never a shortage of.
These aspects were not adequately explained in the summary provided on the ballot.
 
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While I don't think these types of drugs should be encouraged like weed has been where legalization has occurred I do agree with the idea of prioritizing helping over punishment. If some dude buys crack for personal use and gets busted, what does throwing him in jail accomplish? He's still gonna want crack and the amount of crack confiscated is completely meaningless in the grand scheme of the drug trade. Definitely doesn't matter to the drug dealers who already made their money. It's just more burdening of the prison system for no real good reason.
 
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While I don't agree with this generally, I do feel that if you accept the idea that it is somehow moral and should be legal for people to smoke cannabis, you cannot make a moral case to not 100% decriminalize far less harmful drugs like powder cocaine and methamphetamine that don't turn you into a lazy weed addict.
ToddleDoddle said:
While I don't think these types of drugs should be encouraged like weed has been where legalization has occurred I do agree with the idea of prioritizing helping over punishment. If some dude buys crack for personal use and gets busted, what does throwing him in jail accomplish? He's still gonna want crack and the amount of crack confiscated is completely meaningless in the grand scheme of the drug trade. Definitely doesn't matter to the drug dealers who already made their money. It's just more burdening of the prison system for no real good reason.
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I mean, the argument in the US where you don't really have a functioning justice system is that if you know some criminal has done something bad and you want him to go away but you can't get his community to snitch on him, you can probably still get him for some sort of illegal drug because most shitty people who do violent crimes are also shitty drug addicts too.

It would be a better idea to fix society so that you don't have communities where the population refuses to work with police to deal with the criminals within.
 
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