Lawmakers had recently reached a bipartisan deal to undo a key aspect of the law and make minor possession a misdemeanor, while also allocating millions of dollars toward specialty court programs as well as mental health and addiction treatment.
So, no, it’s modifying the law, not undoing it.
But research has so far showed no correlation between the rise in overdoses and decriminalization.
HMMMM.
Still, the public health crisis, coupled with a shortage in affordable housing that has fueled homelessness, has become more visible and residents and business owners have grown increasingly exasperated. City residents report seeing people openly smoking fentanyl in downtowns while small towns that had historically low rates of homelessness are now seeing encampments.
“What has developed in the last three years is not the utopian Shangri-La that we have been promised with ballot Measure 110,” Christopher Parosa, the Eugene district attorney, said at a community forum this year, “but rather a dystopian nightmare that is akin to a grim Hollywood movie.”
Ah, yes, the west coast, famously devoid of homeless people, suddenly inundated with them. Couldn’t have anything to do with, idk, it costing $600 just to rent a room in even a smaller city? $900-1100 for a one bedroom apartment? The cost and supply of housing has nothing to do with the homelessness crisis that’s basically been stewing since 2008, it’s definitely just the last two years of decriminalization? Okay.
Also notably absent: actual, verifiable data-backed evidence that this has been a policy disaster. Plenty of anecdote, though, so I’m sure they’re onto the truth of the matter.