NEWS FROM THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION. Oregon Public Broadcasting ran a heartening story last week headlined, “
Oregon cities join police, prosecutors in push to recriminalize drug possession.” Imagine that.
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You’re probably already thinking that the headline merely shows a crumb of common sense, more useless than the finely shredded fibers left over on the inside of an empty weed baggie. But that’s as harsh as a year-old joint found down in the bottom of the crack of the couch.
Portlanders’ common sense must be graded on a curve.
Back in 2020, in a massive wave of psilocybin-fueled virtue signaling, Oregonians resoundingly passed the now infamous Ballot Measure 110, widely lauded as the state’s “pioneering” drug decriminalization law. The new law decriminalized possession of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, meth, and fentanyl. Instead, Oregon police are now only allowed to hand out $100 civil citations. And the $100 fines are waived when druggies call a toll-free substance-abuse help line that offers free out- or in-patient treatment.
Predictably, it utterly failed. The druggies don’t even bother calling the help line. Out of 6,200 issued fines, only 50 called the toll-free number. Police officers tell stories of things like druggies immediately and non-virtuously
littering by throwing the citations away right in front of cops. One officer said he watched a druggie use the citation paper to wrap and smoke a joint.
After two years of monitoring civilization’s meltdown, many Oregonians are finally sobering up to the problem, and they now want to re-criminalize drug possession after all. Local KOIN-6 reported that, since BM110’s passage, “the drug crisis has grown exponentially.” The station even made a helpful flow chart showing how poorly-flowing is the current, constipated BM110 system:
So Oregonians are now having some hard conversations about how to fix their free-wheeling, reality-defying, not-so-Brave New World. Options include flat-out re-criminalization, involuntary drug treatment that is
like jail, but with mental-health services, or a wide variety of hybrid approaches.
But nobody (
except the ACLU, and who cares?) seems to think the current system is working.
Maybe the liberal paradise of Oregon is finally feeling the cold water of reality splashed into its sleepy face. Or … maybe … the conservative counter-revolution is even sweeping into distant liberal lands like Portland.
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