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OK, So It Seems Like Measure 110 In Oregon Is NOT Working…
Measure 110 passed in Oregon in the same election cycle where Biden beat Trump but it took us four days to figure out that happened. I turned 40 on that Saturday when the media started calling it for Biden, and I went out with some of my wife’s friends and their husbands. All very conservative guys. They were aghast about Measure 110, which essentially decriminalized hard drugs. I myself thought maybe it could be a cool way to deal with addiction and crime, kinda like “Hamsterdam” on The Wire or some stuff that Portugal has done in the past. I think I was probably wrong and they were probably right. Interestingly, almost three years later, two of the guys at that table I haven’t spoken to since that day. Oh well.
Measure 110 comes from the school of thought known as “harm reduction,” meaning that “Look, people are going to use drugs, so let’s try to make it somewhat safer and concentrate it into areas to reduce crime in biz/tourism areas.”
Addiction is a really powerful beast and it can spill over into areas you don’t want it to when you have said x-amount of heroin is legal to carry. Here’s a deep dive on how Measure 110 is not going well:
