A radical three-year experiment in drug decriminalization is poised to end in the Pacific Northwest.
On a bleak block of Portland’s historic Chinatown, where dozens of people experiencing homelessness have pitched tents draped with plastic tarps, evidence of drug use litters the sidewalk. Among discarded cigarette butts lie squares of tin-foil, indented in the middle, with distinctive scorch marks, used to smoke substances like meth and. Visible a few blocks away, a new Four Seasons hotel rises, angular and gleaming, on the skyline.
In retrospect, the key driver of Measure 110’s political demise was that it entrusted implementation of a radical drug-policy experiment to rigid state agencies and police bureaus that were not invested in — or even hostile to — its success. The state’s former governor, Kate Brown, recently told reporters that Measure 110 demanded bold change of a state that was “probably one of the least prepared to be successful.” Brown, a Democrat who left the job with the, has also been frank that her policy priorities were elsewhere — including attending to Covid vaccine rollouts, school reopenings, wildfire response, and the unrest in the streets following the murder of George Floyd.
Measure 110 short circuited that style of policing. And cops told researchers they not only preferred that more intrusive model, they had little patience for issuing possession citations, which carried penalties less stiff than traffic violations, but still required time-consuming evidence booking and paperwork.
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