The drug decriminalization wave that swept across America's most liberal cities has fallen short of its promises of improving drug addiction recovery and overdose deaths.
Beginning in the mid-2010s and making a significant uptick since 2020, drug decriminalization was sold by politicians and liberal activists as a way to combat substance-use disorder by treating it as a disease rather than a crime. The increase in 2020 was spurred by the activism following the murder of George Floyd, who had ingested both fentanyl and methamphetamine, the most prominent drugs found in overdose victims.
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Major cities across the country, including Philadelphia, Seattle, Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Baltimore, the District of Columbia, and St. Louis, have pursued decriminalization whether through local law or a district attorney's decision not to prosecute offenses.
The moves to decriminalize have been followed by increases in homelessness, crime, blight, and drug overdose deaths, leading some to rethink their political decisions.
In March 2021, New York legalized marijuana, which even former Gov. Andrew Cuomo called a "disaster." Later that year, New York City became the first city in the country to open "experimental" safe consumption sites, and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) signed a bill legalizing the possession of hypodermic needles and syringes used to inject drugs.
San Francisco refuses to prosecute drug crimes and provides addicts with paraphernalia such as needles, metal heroin cookers, aluminum foil and straws to consume fentanyl, and crack pipes.
In July, Washington state will decriminalize all drug possession as lawmakers could not come to an agreement on criminal penalties, and many are looking to what has happened to neighbor Oregon to see what the Evergreen State's future holds.
The Oregon laboratory
Oregon is the country's most prominent laboratory for discerning the effects of drug decriminalization.
In late 2020, voters in Oregon passed Measure 110, which made the Beaver State the only in the nation to decriminalize hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. New York is looking at implementing a similar law now.
Since then, Oregon has become the state with the second-highest rate of substance use disorder and sees more than two deaths per day from opioid overdoses, according to a government audit of the consequences of Measure 110.
According to preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, Oregon's overdose deaths increased 6.76% from December 2021 to December 2022. The national increase was 0.5%.
Portland trial attorney Kristin Olson, who voted for Measure 110, told the Washington Examiner that it allows persons to "continue to use drugs into oblivion and then be Narcaned when you stop breathing."
Olson explained that the measure has led to a "free for all" that, combined with the "defund the police culture," has led to "lawlessness." It has resulted in "overdoses and a terrible increase in addiction, coupled with a lack of treatment beds, like rehabs and detoxes."
The consequences for Portland and Oregon have been dramatic, and critics say the policy has "normalized drug use."
Between 2020 and 2022, Oregon saw one of the country's largest spikes in homelessness, growing 23% over two years while the national average growth was less than 1%, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The increase is not just due to Oregonians becoming homeless through drug use. According to Olson, Oregon's drug laws attract out-of-state homeless persons who seek access to drugs, housing, clothing, and other "harm reduction" items available to them under Measure 110.
"There's certainly a drug tourism operation that's happening with the influx of people into Portland," she said. "There's no doubt. If you talk to the police, they will tell you that a lot of these people are not from here."
With the increase in homelessness came a decrease in tax revenue because so many Portland residents were leaving.
According to Portland State University's Population Research Center, the city has been losing residents over the past three years, a phenomenon that had not happened since 1987. This migration, which has seen nearly 13,000 persons leave the Portland area, has cost $117 million in tax revenue.
Lower quality of life is driving many Portland residents out of the city, according to Olson, who described the scene outside her office building.
"As I was walking back to my car last night, I stepped over three people. Another person followed me to my car. Another person was taking a pee in my parking lot in the corner," she said. "There are needles and foil regularly on the sidewalk. This is just in the core of downtown. ... It's right by the library. It's supposed to be a place you could take your children, but nobody's taking their children there."
"We've got bodies lying in the streets," she continued. "I've got a bridal shop store in my building and a makeup store. No one is going to step over somebody doing fentanyl to buy a $5,000 bridal gown. That's not going to happen."
According to recent polling, 63% of Oregonians support reinstating criminal punishment for drugs while also wanting to fund treatment programs.
While Measure 110 decriminalized hard drugs, it did not bring with it a recovery or treatment requirement for drug use. Oregon officials had allocated $264.6 million to treatment centers in the state, money that has proven difficult for the state to track since the passage of Measure 110.
In the wake of the increases in homelessness, crime, and overdose deaths, the Oregon model has highlighted a stark difference between what is known as "harm reduction" and treatment and recovery.
'Harm reduction' vs. treatment
Pushes to decriminalize are inspired by an interest in the Portugal model for decriminalization, which changed the law so that drug users are referred to counseling and treatment as opposed to the criminal justice system.
While Portugal's law involves some of the same "harm reduction" pursuits as American models, American cities and states often left out counseling and treatment as part of the pathway to recovery.
"Harm reduction" practices in U.S. cities include the distribution of emergency opioid overdose reversal drugs such as naloxone (Narcan), "safe smoking kits," needles, aluminum foil, and sometimes help with items such as bill payments, housing, and clothing.
"We're not going to stop you from using. We're not going to try to stop you from using. What we're going to try to do is make it safer to use," Manhattan Institute fellow Charles Lehman told the Washington Examiner. "That's all very different from treatment. The goal of treatment is to get people to stop using drugs."
"Harm reduction" has its roots in the AIDS epidemic, in which the spread of the disease was exacerbated by addicts sharing needles. The idea at the time was stopping the spread of HIV could be aided by setting up needle exchanges so users would stop sharing dirty needles.
In Oregon, tax revenue from marijuana sales has been reallocated to fund grants for "harm reduction" but not pay for treatment, which is already in short supply.
'The last net that catches them before they die'
According to Joe Gamaldi, the national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, police are wrestling with increased emergency calls, staffing shortages, and not arresting suspects for small amounts of certain drugs such as marijuana in 100 localities, as well as 26 states and the District of Columbia.
Gamaldi told the Washington Examiner that decriminalization policies are immoral from both a societal and drug addict's point of view.
"There is a balance between [a drug user's] personal freedom and what is acceptable within our society," Gamaldi said, noting the community consequences of public drug use and homelessness.
Those with a substance use disorder are often trapped in a downward spiral of losing jobs and connections to family and friends. More court-ordered rehabilitation could be a tool used to aid recovery, Gamaldi said.
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"It may be that time in jail or some sort of court order to rehabilitation is going to be the last net that catches them before they die," Gamaldi said. "Sometimes, we get into this like bigotry of low expectations. We just expect that those people are lost."
"The compassionate side from our side as police officers, because we actually care about every member of our community, is let's get them some help and see if we can get them back on the right track."