Re:Oregon Decriminalized Hard Drugs
by ryukoposting on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @08:22PM
(#36965226)
Measure 110 (and the Republican platform on drugs, for that matter) assumes that rehabilitation and punishment cannot coexist for petty drug crimes. I believe they can.
As the article mentions, Measure 110 specifically prohibits recepients of funding from requiring abstinence in their programs. I'm not a psychologist, but it's probably a lot harder to get people to stop doing drugs if you aren't allowed to tell them to stop doing drugs. Hard drugs have to be seen in a negative light in the social zeitgeist, period.
On the other hand, the sheriff's quote basically says "we don't think these rehab programs will work, so we aren't going to give tickets to drug users." That's just as counterproductive as anti-abstinence.
The criminal-justice reform side of Measure 110 is pretty good. Small amounts of drugs shouldn't be punishable with incarceration or huge fines. IMO the asinine rules for rehab programs, and the broken bureaucracy surrounding them, seem like a good place to start.
As the article mentions, Measure 110 specifically prohibits recepients of funding from requiring abstinence in their programs. I'm not a psychologist, but it's probably a lot harder to get people to stop doing drugs if you aren't allowed to tell them to stop doing drugs. Hard drugs have to be seen in a negative light in the social zeitgeist, period.
On the other hand, the sheriff's quote basically says "we don't think these rehab programs will work, so we aren't going to give tickets to drug users." That's just as counterproductive as anti-abstinence.
The criminal-justice reform side of Measure 110 is pretty good. Small amounts of drugs shouldn't be punishable with incarceration or huge fines. IMO the asinine rules for rehab programs, and the broken bureaucracy surrounding them, seem like a good place to start.