https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/05/13/overdose-deaths-rose-3...
Oregon had the 5th largest rise in overdoses behind such progressive luminaries as Alaska, Kansas, South Dakota and Vermont. I may be wrong, but I doubt any of these states decriminalized hard drugs over this period.
And the article points out the massive jump in ODs is due to a significant influx of Fentanyl in Oregon, which until recently had been largely an East coast phenomenon.
Another solution might be for heavy federal intervention in finding and dismantling the fentanyl distribution network and throwing everything at them. Those guys need to be jailed for life or killed.
My brother died of a heroin overdose many years ago -- it was illegal then (of course) and the country spent billions on "drug enforcement" but it didn't stop the black market from providing him a dangerous drug with no way of knowing purity.
Drug addiction is a health issue and by criminalizing it we don't make it go away, we just make it more expensive and more destructive to society.
They also need to be providing legal, vetted, licensed channels that supply drugs to the users so people aren’t using drugs laced with fentanyl.
That’s the quickest, easiest and probably the least likely to succeed solution.
https://beportugal.com/portugal-drug-laws/
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ldjif4/the_portugal...
San Francisco is doing all they can to pursue the sort of plan you propose. It isn't working. Drug abuse and related crimes have only gotten worse. "I heard about Portugal on a podcast" drug policy has been a disaster.
What does Portugal have to do with it?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment
Portgul is relevant because their program of decriminalization is frequently referenced in media and by US policymakers.
Society is just fine with people killing themselves with drugs as long as they are alcohol and tobacco.
The problem is too much money is made off the current situation and most the population has been brainwashed into thinking that making drugs illegal will protect us from them.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oregon/articles/2022...
2021 did indeed see a growth in homicides over 2020. But 2020 saw an even greater growth in homicides over 2019. Considering the measure was passed in Nov 2020, it’s pretty likely that the rise of homicides in Portland had causes other than Measure 110.
>The homicide rate in the City of Portland is up 207% according to a new report released this morning by Mayor Wheeler's office.
This is also true across the country, the vast majority of which have not decriminalized anything.
And if property crimes are rising, the real question is why the people committing those crimes are not being arrested and brought to Justice.
You don’t need to arrest people for drug possession to prevent them from committing multiple real crimes. You need to arrest them for committing real crimes.
Which reveals the real attraction of drug arrests. They are easy. Which allows the police and the prosecutors to goose their numbers and look like they’re doing something, as opposed to solving and prosecuting real crime, which is harder to do.