As someone who voted for the measure to decriminalize small, personal-use amounts of drugs in Oregon, I've been keeping tabs on how things have gone with the measure since it passed (even when I was out of state for grad school).
In a nutshell, for any reader not familiar with this new law, in 2020 Oregon put to vote a measure (Measure 110) that would decriminalize all drugs in small amounts. The penalty for offenders is a small fine, and that's about it. The fine can apparently be waived if the cited party completes a by-phone recovery process. There's more to it, but this is more an opinion piece, and I'm not going to bog it down with links and references and such.
From what I've gathered, the phone recovery process isn't exactly working out super well. There are a lot of no-call, no-shows. And since a fairly sizable portion of the parties cited are seemingly homeless, it's kind of hard to enforce their participation in the process. I think the idea of a recovery process is good, but I think the belief that the phone check-in format was going to work is...maybe a little naïve. It assumes that the cited parties can be found if they don't check in, that they'll even remember they were cited in the first place, etc. Basically, it's all but unenforceable.
I voted for the measure for a couple of reasons:
1) I truly believe that possession of .personal-use amounts of drugs should be ignored by police. It's a waste of their time. I think it creates undue stress on officers, and that stress can cause breaks that lead to good cops doing things they regret. I'd rather a cop be investigating domestic abuse cases, for instance, than wasting time searching and arresting some guy who's falling asleep while he's standing up or screaming about alien cockroaches eating his brain or whatever. Go after the large-scale suppliers/manufacturers, not the junkie. The best way to keep people off hard rugs is to make sure there's no hard drugs. It takes a lot longer to catch suppliers/manufacturers than some junkie on the street. It takes a lot of investigation and legwork and undercover work and code-cracking and planning and so on and so forth. If you're spending all your time picking up every dork with a pipe or a needle on the street, you'll never get to the actual meth supplier or fentanyl source or whomever.
2)I thought there was a well thought out, and realistically implementable, plan for the decriminalization process and aftermath. Honestly, beyond the phone line thing...I don't really know what the plan is.
3) I didn't know COVID was going to happen. It's something that probably exacerbated the drug-use problem (and led to a lot more addictions). Homelessness hit really hard through-out Oregon. I don't think the violent clashes of protesters from different ideologies helped things either, but I really think the economic hit from COVID (and even after, since the lifting of restrictions) has created sort of a perfect storm to see significant growth in new cases of addiction. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. As a recovering alcoholic who started drinking as a way to (poorly) cope with trauma, I know how easy it is to fall into a cycle of addiction and substance abuse when you're trying to cope. A lot of people from all walks of life took some heavy hits during the pandemic, and I do feel like the overlap in the timing of the decriminalization and the pandemic kind of exacerbated drug use (not just in Oregon, but my focus here is on Oregon).
I think what I most want to address in this post is point 2.
Because decriminalization of this type, on this scale, really hasn't been done in the USA before, everything you're attempting is uncharted territory. Any plan is based on speculation and projections based on these speculations, not analysis of pre-existing data from similar cases.
I think this means any plan has to, necessarily, be adaptable. But there still has to be a plan.
I was thinking what a plan might look like. And because I tend to run less sentimental and more logical (in the coldest sense of the word) when considering there types of scenarios, the following is what I thought up. It might seem harsh to some. It might even seem inhumane to some. I don't know. I apologize if the proposal offends anyone, but as I see it, this is the only real way you can make decriminalization work without turning whole cities into drug dens (a little bit of hyperbole there, but you get the picture).
I really hope you read to the end. If you can't get to the end organically because you find yourself offended by the proposal, please skip to the conclusion, read that, and try again.
Anyway.....
I propose essentially creating what I'll call drug cities in various counties. This is basically the ghettoization, to put it bluntly, of hard drug use. Marijuana and alcohol use wouldn't fall under this proposal. Here, "hard drugs" refers to drugs such as heroin, crack, meth, cocaine, pcp....you get the idea..
It's sort of similar to the idea in the 3rd season of the TV series "The Wire:. A plotline in the season involved a Section Chief (or whatever) going rogue and creating a few "free zones" existing on specific blocks in his district. In these zones, people could sell and use hard drugs, and no one got arrested. But the catch was he was doing it under the radar, without the local governments knowledge. In the show they did set up clean needle exchanges, free contraception, etc. in the "free zones", and I thought that was interesting My proposal is similar, but works on the fact that the government mandates the implementation.
I think the ideal scenario works on a few assumptions:
-In each county or region, an area can be identified that can accommodate a sizable population without being too close to established cities. Preferably, buildings exist that can be appropriated for housing. No one is expecting the lap of luxury here. You're appropriating enough to shelter from the elements and provide running water and sewage.. I know this might sound harsh, but I think the area should be enclosable, too. I'll get more into that later.
-The area can accommodate treatment facilities. This is probably the most important part of this proposal. You have to give people who want to quit both the opportunity and the means to quit. The idea isn't to quarantine people and let them die. Rehabilitation must be an option. But you also can't force rehabilitation. I know for myself, I wasn't able to rehabilitate myself by force; it had to be my choice.
-Non-state (or federal) funding. Obviously some funding from the government would be necessary, but I think there's a way to fund a project like this without depleting state funds or burdening the federal government. I think the private sector can play a big role here.
-There would have to be a pilot version to see how effective the idea would really be. It would be a long, slow burn. Here is a good place to note that I would consider this entire proposal to be something that would take a very long time to roll out. This isn't a "just do it" kind of proposal. Like I said before, it's uncharted territory. You need a pilot programme to determine feasibility based on real, collected data and not hopes and assumptions. Then you can adjust projections based on the real data and chose to continue or abort the plan before sinking billions into it.
So, working with those assumptions, I'm going to outline the proposal in a few different sections.
Section 1 will be address the fundamentals The infrastructure and set-up of the proposed cities/towns/areas where these drug-ghettos would be and how these drug-ghettos (I know the term ghetto is very...racially charged...but I'm using the term in it's broadest definition) would operate.
Section 2 will address funding issues.
Section 3 will address advantages and disadvantages to the proposal.
The conclusion will synthesize the material covered in the above.
Section 1: The Drug Cities
As pointed out in the introductory statements, the main idea here is to essentially move hard drug users out of the main population and into areas where the use of hard drugs will be contained and concentrated. The trick is to make sure it's not an "out of sight, out of mind" thing; that there's a real opportunity for the addicts to get treatment if they chose to. As a recovering alcoholic who went through treatment both by court order and by personal choice...recovery has to be a personal choice. No one else (courts, counselors, clergy, whatever/whomever) can make you want to quit. People caught with hard drugs in the rest of the state (outside of the drug cities) would be sent to the drug cities. People caught with hard drugs in their system would be sent there. (From here on out "drugs" will be used to refer to "hard drugs". Things like caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, and prescriptions wouldn't count. If you're caught using prescription drugs recreationally without a prescription....that's another story.)
So the idea here is to identify a somewhat secluded area to set up these areas. As mentioned in the introductory statements, the ideal areas would have pre-existing structures. Maybe a small town with an old mill given some minor upgrades (e.g.; dorm-style bedrooms, bathrooms) could house a few hundred people. Maybe existing apartment buildings can be appropriated.
Essentially, this is a place to sleep, eat, and do drugs (or, better yet, overcome addiction to drugs). Aside from running water, mattresses, heat in cold weather, and some basic staple foods (e.g.; rice & beans, noodles and tomato sauce, canned tuna, canned fruits), there's not much else that would be supplied aside from the options to remain on drugs in the drug cities or get treatment. This shouldn't be a reward for addiction, it's containment and control of addiction. You don't get stuff like internet or a rec room and creature comforts in one of these places.
Ideally, the drug cities would be a centre surrounded by fence or wall between the city an a treatment facility and staff barracks encircling the fencing/walling. The only way in or out would be through treatment at the treatment facility. There would obviously be guards to ensure the facility wouldn't be (ahem) bum rushed by addicts trying to get out. You'd have to have first responders for od's and such, too.
Distribution of drugs would be regulated and the drugs themselves would be tested for things like fentanyl or other deadly additives and impurities. Procuring the drugs to distribute is a trickier proposition (both legally and ethically), and I honestly don't have a great idea for a solution to that right now..
Section 2: Funding
The funding part is the trickiest part of this proposal. My thought is that funding can be derived from a number of sources. I'm just going to list possibilities here.
1) Drug Companies. Here, I mean legal drug companies like Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson. Companies that might take interest in developing anti-addiction medication. This type of pharmacological research exists, and to have a control group of this size would obviously be enticing to these companies, and I'm guessing they'd be willing to provide funding to such a project. The only real problem I see is the public perception problem; there's the risk of being known as the company that funded the drug cities. But if a company (or companies) could successfully spin it as funding treatment of, and the fight against, addiction in a way that can show how their role can have a positive effect on society... and a company was willing to take that risk for the greater good... it might be a non-problem.
2)Drug Tourism. Let non-addicts who want to go do some blow or whatever for 2 days go in, do their thing, and come out for a fee. Exiting would require a short round of treatment sessions.
3) Research grants. Something like this would be a big research opportunity for psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, medical professionals, and others with research focusing on addiction and/or treatment. of addiction and related (closely or not) subjects. There's probably significant overlap between this possibility and possibility #1.
4) Charities and donations. I wouldn't expect much here, tbh.
Section 3: Pro's and Con's
I'm going to preamble by saying I'm definitely going to be adding to these lists.
I'll start with the cons:
C1) Rounding people up is tricky, and would probably face a lot of push back from groups like the ACLU as being inhumane. You'd have to find a way to hold people while determining if they're on drugs. You can't just toss someone in a drug ghetto because you assume they're on drugs. It has to be established that they are on drugs.
C2) Finding staff who can do the work without completely burning out in the first week. The staff would pretty much be keeping Hell clean, and it will take a quick, harsh toll on anyone.
It might be worth exploring the idea of having the option for having incarcerated individuals work in the ghettos in exchange for commutation of time served. . They could take roles such as distributing goods, keeping grounds as close to the most baseline level of sanitary as possible, etc. That would probably be difficult to implement without resistance from groups that would consider it inhumane. But maybe it can be spun as a diversion programme for convicted drug dealers; force them to see, all day every day for a period of time, the results of the substances they pedal.
C3) The inevitable media circus that would surround this. It will be the s-storm to end all s-storms, for at least a week or until some celebrity does something racist. Whichever comes first.
Next, the pro's:
P1) There's the obvious effect of reducing crime. Addicts won't be shoplifting or breaking into cars, or attacking people on trains, and such.
P2) This would help in addressing the homeless crisis by separating certain subgroups of the homeless population. I see 3 major homeless populations in Oregon (and especially Portland):
(a) addicts. those who are homeless because drugs have completely taken control of their lives.
(b) people with mental health issues not related to addiction (e.g.; schizophrenics, people suffering from PTSD)
(c) people who genuinely fell on hard times for one reason or another and are only homeless due to difficulty finding a job and/or a home.
If you take out (a) and address it on its own, then you can more easily work with (b) and (c). Group (c) should be easiest to help when you can isolate those folks from people who have deeper issues. Get group (c) some jobs and some housing, and problem solved.
You can't treat these 3 groups the same. They don't have the same problems. The problem with treating all three groups as one general group called "the homeless" is that group (c) kind of gets swept under the rug when trying to address the more...shall we say dramatic...problems of groups (a) and (b). In a lot of cases, this ends up with people in group (c) migrating into group (a).
P3) One of the most maddening things about the addiction crisis (in bigger cities like Portland especially) is how difficult it is to find and help people od'ing and such. You're asking first responders to navigate tight streets searching for someone. You can teleport first responders to the scene. They have to travel. With the drug ghettos, you reduce that search radius. If the drug ghetto is 10 buildings in a 5 block radius or something, it's just easier to get to people and get them aid. You don't need to send out 5 fire engines circling the city hoping you got good directions from the person who alerted you of the emergency. Trying to find someone od'ing "on the corner of NE 23rd and...damn...the cross street sign is down, but I think there's a McDonalds or a Wendys or something a few blocks over" isn't easy. Concentrating drug use would save lives in that regard.
P4) You keep things like needles and pills and such away from residential areas. The last thing any normal person (and even most abnormal people) want is to read about some kid getting a used needle stuck in their foot, or a toddler ingesting a stray pill or something like that. Implemented effectively, the proposal would significantly reduce those types of risks.
Conclusion
Drugs aren't going anywhere. Addiction isn't going to end because you don't like it. Thoughts and prayers don't do anything. Revolving door prisons for minor possession charges is a toll on the system, from enforcement, to incarceration, to post-incarceration.
The best we can do is find the most effective way to combat addiction and the drug trade. That will probably always be a work in progress. There's always going to be drugs, there's always going to be addicts, and there's always going to be people who want to profit off selling drugs to addicts. That's just the way it is.
Prop110 isn't a cure-all. It isn't perfect by any measure. But it can be a slate on which we can start writing a new approach to combating addiction and drug use. At the very least, it can provide a point to build off of and look for new approaches. The old "War on Drugs" and "Street level user busts" paradigms are obsolete and never really worked in the first place. The proposed solution here may not work either. But it's better than choosing a return to the obsolete model(s) and it's better than just sitting back and doing nothing and letting the problem swallow the state whole.
The biggest hurdle for a proposal like this is public perception. It's admittedly a doozy, and could easily be seen as inhumane. One of the reasons I mentioned the necessity of a long roll out even prior to any pilot programme is that you really have to plan something like this down to the nuts and bolts. The potential for inhumane treatment is immense. You have to try to bulwark against it as much as possible before you even start putting beds in the rooms. You want it to be seen as humane because it IS humane, not because you put a thin veneer of "humanity" over am abattoir of human abuses.
I hope it's clear that the point of the proposal is to try to make the option for treatment more accessible, The point is to make emergency care more accessible. The point is to use the opportunity to find the most effective ways, pharmacologically and/or psychologically, to help patients beat addiction and stay sober. The point is to keep neighbourhoods safer and cleaner.
I hope the reader gives this proposal a second read if they find the first read to decribe an exercise in the inhumane.
I feel like there's definitely some flaws to the admittedly handwavy proposal. But I don't feel like any of the flaws border on inhumane. From top to bottom, this proposal doesn't really put anyone in any worse position than they're in now. Addicts are addicts in a quarantine or in public spaces. At least in the proposed drug cities they would always have a place inside to sleep.. And if they decide to quit, there'd be beds in treatment centres that are probably even more comfortable. I just think that in the end, everyone ends up in a better position than before, and the progress that can be made in fighting addiction can be accelerated with a concentrated population of addicts, and accelerated in-patient and outpatient care if/when addicts choose to quit.
I think, if you're not seeing the desire for a compassionate system in your first read, you should give it another go.
Update (14 Jan, 2023)
I agree with this Cato Institute article (www.cato.org/blog/oregons-drug-decriminalization-needs-go-further) quite a bit. I don't know that the article stresses the importance of forward planning of, essentially, full legalization.
I do think the point about how homicides rose at a greater rate pre-decriminalization was interesting.
Anyway, it's a good article with some interesting info, and worth a read.
Update (11 April, 2023)
I was watching this (link) and thought that might be a good spot to try a trial version of the program. Since the addiction crisis and the homeless crisis have significant overlap, this could be a good plan to present Gov. Kotek to open up the allotted funds set aside to combat the homeless crisis. Like I said in the main post, concentrating addicts would make it easier to identify (and thus help) the non-addicted homeless population that really just need help getting a job and transitioning into a place to live. Just a thought.
Update 22 June, 2023
Going through the specs of Washington Centre (link), I still think it'd be a good spot to try a trial version of this proposal. You can use the parking garage area as a space for people to use drugs, and use the 2 main budlings as dormitories and in-patient care for those who want to beat their addiction. It's not big enough to house all drug use (and users), but that's why it would be a pilot/trial.