To revitalize Portland, officials are trying to recriminalize public drug use

After years of rising overdoses and an exodus of cases from downtown Portland, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said Monday that state and city officials are proposing to roll back part of the country’s most comprehensive drug decriminalization law in an attempt to revive drug legislation. troubled city.

Under the plan, drawn up by Gov. Kotek, a Democrat, state lawmakers would be asked to consider a ban on public drug use and police would be given more resources to combat drug distribution. Ms Kotek said officials hoped to restore a sense of safety for both visitors and workers in the city’s beleaguered urban core, which has seen an exodus of key shops. including REI, an institution in the Pacific Northwest.

“When it comes to drug use in the open, no one wants to see that,” Ms. Kotek said in an interview. “We need different tools to get the message across that this is not acceptable behavior.”

In addition to new bans on drug use and an expanded police presence, a task force led by the governor also proposed a moratorium on new taxes and other tax credits aimed at encouraging businesses to stay in the city. The group also called for more services for homeless residents, including increased shelter capacity, and emergency declarations at multiple levels of government to help open more services to people struggling with drug addiction.

Oregon voters in 2020 approved the nation’s first law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of hard drugs, including fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine. The ballot measure aimed to end the use of prison as punishment for drug users and instead treat addiction as a health problem. This effort would involve major new investments in drug treatment, but those new systems have been slow to develop.

In the meantime, cities across the country are struggling to control both widespread homelessness and the overdose crisis fueled by the rapid spread of fentanyl, a highly addictive drug that is both cheap and deadly. In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed has pushed for the arrest of drug users, saying sometimes “tough love” is needed. Last month, Seattle implemented a new law which prohibits the possession of drugs and use in public.

“Portland is changing,” Ms. Kotek said, adding that the new approach could be a model for other cities. Multnomah County, which includes Portland, is approaching 500 overdose deaths annually, up from about 200 in 2019, and the number of deaths statewide has risen 28 percent over the past year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the second highest jump. in the country, behind Washington State.

Advocates for drug policy reform expressed concern about the proposal to reinstate criminal penalties for drug use. Tera Hurst, executive director of the nonprofit Health Justice Recovery Alliance, said the focus should be on providing people with access to services. She noted that many people struggling with addiction have difficulty accessing services.

The emphasis on prosecution and policing effectively criminalises poverty, Ms Hurst said, because many of the people who use drugs in public are homeless. And she expressed fears that people will instead try to use drugs in private, where they are more likely to overdose.

“If we push it back into the criminal system, it pushes people back into the shadows,” Ms Hurst said. “People will die because of this.”

The arrival of fentanyl and a powerful new methamphetamine has brought new challenges to Oregon’s more open drug policy, including people dealing with deeper addictions and mental health issues than before, said Dr. Andy Mendenhall, the president and CEO of Central City Concern, a nonprofit organization. aimed at helping the homeless.

His nonprofit supported the passage of Measure 110, the drug decriminalization initiative. He said he continued to support overall decriminalization efforts, although he recognized the need for changes.

“We are in a very strong position of, ‘Review, don’t repeal,’” he said. He said there is value in offering people treatment as a diversionary option during a criminal trial.

Mr. Mendenhall works in the Old Town area of ​​downtown. In some places, tents cover the sidewalks, with some people lying motionless in the streets and others showing obvious signs of mental illness, a scene that Mendenhall said can make visitors feel unsafe.

Three weeks ago, he said, he was walking between neighborhood meetings when someone stopped him to draw attention to a young man who wasn’t breathing. Mr. Mendenhall reached into his bag to pull out a dose of naloxone, which helps treat overdoses. He said it took four doses and ventilation to revive the man.

After paramedics arrived, he said, the man opted not to go to the hospital or be immediately referred to addiction treatment.

Ms. Kotek’s task force does not have the power to immediately ban public drug use, but the panel called on the Legislature to take up the issue in the upcoming session, along with changes that would reduce barriers to prosecuting those who use drugs supply could decrease. Lawmakers have already discussed possible changes to the decriminalization law.