Kicks of the mule
It took three years’ worth
They still call it a “pioneering” drug law. We suppose that’s technically accurate. Even pioneers take wrong turns and end up as bear bait.
Man has always had what the Greeks call hubris. The way we use the term today, it can be an endearing characteristic of the species. It’s what got us to the moon and will get us to Mars. But the Greeks didn’t mean “confidence” when they came up with the word. They meant excessive over-confidence, as opposed to temperance and reason.
You may have heard that the state of Oregon—namely its voters—changed the state law in 2020 to “decriminalize” the possession of small amounts of even hard drugs and get away from the “focus on punishment,” as so many once put it. The law, Measure 110, was approved by nearly 60 percent of Oregon’s voters.
It went over so well that it’s being reversed.
This week, the governor of Oregon—a Democrat in good standing— signed a new law to “re-criminalize” drugs. After the new regs take legal effect on Sept. 1, somebody caught with a small amount of drugs will face what the papers call a new “drug enforcement misdemeanor.” Which is more of a punishment than the ticket/ note/get-out-of-jail-free card the cops were handing out, like strange religious tracts for a sect most folks would like to avoid.
It took several kicks of the mule, but Oregon residents learned. For three long years the news—and pictures— came out of Portland: people sticking needles into their arms in broad daylight, sex on the sidewalks, business owners complaining about the lack of foot traffic in certain precincts.
If nearly 60 percent of Oregon’s voters asked to take this step in 2020, by August 2023, one poll showed that 56 of the state’s residents said they disapproved of the law. People become educable when overdose deaths skyrocket and fentanyl starts filling up the coroners’ offices.
Dispatches from the front say that Republicans and Democrats were behind the efforts in Oregon’s legislature to overturn the law and restore it to sanity. Who says we’re hopelessly divided in this country? Just let the crack and heroin flow outside your business venture, and partisan differences melt away.
Gov. Tina Kotek says the new law will depend on a “deep coordination” between mental health providers, doctors, courts and police. No doubt. But the new law will also depend on six months in jail for those who possess certain drugs. Carrots and sticks work best when they work together.
Those who supported Measure 110 still say that the measure prevented thousands of people from being arrested.
Again, no doubt. But how many died in the streets with their clean records?
There will be those who’d note that other states have been hit by the fentanyl crisis too, including this one. They’re right. The Washington Post reported last year that fentanyl overdoses were the No. 1 cause of death in people ages 18-49 nationwide. It’s a crisis everywhere.
But that doesn’t mean We the People should surrender to it. And wave the white flag as all the other drugs close in for the kill.
The strange part of this story out of Oregon, or one of the strange parts, is that the new bipartisan, popular, re-criminalizing of hard drugs in that state . . . .
Doesn’t take effect until Sept. 1. The reason for that delay is beyond us. We’d say that Oregon has good reasons for waiting that long, but we’re past giving that state the benefit of the doubt.