B.C. has started a 3-year test to make it legal to have small amounts of some drugs
Police in Portland, Oregon, have seen Charles Laprain in a parking lot with fentanyl powder. That would have been a crime two years ago.
Instead, Portland police officer David Baer writes him a $100 US ticket, which could be dropped if Laprain calls the recovery hotline on the back of the ticket.
which, he admits, he’s not sure about.
“It gives a person more chances to at least get clean,” he said in late January. “Putting people in jail doesn’t help anything.”
Since Oregon came into the picture, Baer has had conversations like this every day.Measure 110As of February 2021, all small amounts of hard drugs in the state will no longer be illegal.
He was surprised to learn that British Columbia had also recently taken steps to remove criminal penalties for personal possession. He says there could be problems that haven’t been thought of yet.
“There will be more people using drugs in public,” Baer said.
In the first year after Oregon’s new law went into effect, the number of opioid-related deaths went up by 52%, and the state has struggled to provide enough access to treatment, which is also a problem in B.C.
Leading the wa
According to an audit of the initiative done by the Oregon Secretary of State’s office and released last month, it’s “too early to tell” how well this health-based approach to drug use is working in Oregon.
Measure 110, which was 58 percent of Oregonians voted for it.In 2020, this means that using drugs in public is still against the law, but having them is not.
Instead of being treated like criminals, users are given information about treatment options on the back of their tickets. These options are paid for with more than $135 million in tax revenue from the state’s legal cannabis sales.
But the state has learned that few people are calling for help. The audit shows that by June of last year, the hotline, which is meant to connect drug users with services, had only received 119 calls at a cost of over $9,200 per call.
Delays in funding treatment services, confusion about how programs are run, and putting together a system that makes it easy for drug users to get help have also been big problems.according to the report.
These are the types of problems that British Columbia,was the first government in Canada.Tera Hurst from Oregon’s Health Justice Recovery Initiative, a group that worked to get Measure 110 passed and decriminalized 2.5 grams or less of opioids, cocaine, meth, and ecstasy in January, says that other states could learn from Oregon’s experience.
Even though Oregon and British Columbia’s decriminalization measures are different in some ways, like the fact that the Canadian program is just a three-year trial, they both share the sad fact that they have some of the highest rates of drug use and overdose deaths in their respective countries.
Because of this, people are impatient for quick solutions that work.
But Hurst, who is also a recovering addict, told CBC News that getting rid of addiction and drug use in society is hard and takes time, even though North America is looking to Oregon as a model.
She said, “You can use us as an example of why you should do it or why we should never do that.”
Deaths ris
According to Oregon Public Health Surveillance, there were more deaths from opioid overdoses in 2021, the year decriminalization went into effect, than in the two years before.
Even though the statistics for 2022 aren’t ready yet, some critics are already calling for the measures to be scrapped and the money to be spent on something else.
There, people who support decriminalization say that the program needs more time to work and that the rise in deaths is related to a rise in overdose deaths and drug toxicity across the country.
Health Canada hasn’t hidden the fact that it is looking into things as it thinks about decriminalization.through various task forceshow other places dealt with alternatives to criminal punishments.
Portland might be the most similar place to Canada in terms of drug decriminalization, but it’s not the most famous. Portugal used to be the worst country in Europe for drug use and deaths.began decriminalizing all drugs in 2001.Deaths from overdoses and drug use fell. Since then, they’ve stayed.always below the average of the EU.
But solving substance use disorders and drug use in other parts of the world isn’t as easy as copying and pasting the Portugal model, as Oregon has learned.
We still need more access to treatment
Access to health care is a big difference between the European country and the U.S. state. Canada and Portugal both have health care for everyone, but the U.S. does not. So, Hurst says, putting the model into place in Oregon required building a larger detox and treatment system that didn’t exist before. This caused problems and slowed down the rollout.
She said, “We’re hitting all the walls and finding all the different barriers out there, and we’re trying to figure out how to get around them.”
An oversight council made up of people who have been in recovery helped give grants to community groups all over the state. These groups are required to offer services like housing and case management, as well as screening and referral for substance use disorder. Under the measure, each county or tribal area must have at least one of these groups.
Even with the investment, Oregon still ranks 50th in the U.S. for access to treatment. A 2022 analysis of gaps in services shows that Oregon would need to double its current services to meet demand.
In British Columbia, it can take up to four weeks for someone to get into detox. Dr. Paxton Bach, a co-medical director at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, said that this is “an eternity for someone who is using drugs” (BCCSU).
Bach says that moving from that program to bed-based treatment could take months, leaving users in a vulnerable state of limbo.
But Carolyn Bennett, who is Canada’s Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, saidtoured Oregon in August 2022, says that B.C. can learn from Oregon’s approach, especially its funding of a number of community-based treatment organizations “to build the kind of trusting relationships that allow people to think about a different life.”
Building trus
At a park in north Portland, O’Nesha Cochrane-Dumas is one person who represents the space between addiction and recovery.
She works as a counselor atThe Miracles Cluba community center in Oregon that helps people who use drugs and are African Americans. Drug policies hurt black people and people of color more than they hurt white people.like the war on drugsAccording to the U.S. Census and the Department of Corrections, black people are four times more likely to end up in prison in Oregon.
Cochrane-Dumas has been there before. She started using drugs when she was 13, stole small things, had sex to stay alive, and went to prison three times before she got clean. She now does outreach work at the park where she used to get high. In this mostly black neighborhood, she gives out new shirts, socks, and harm-reduction kits with naloxone, which can save lives.
Measure 110 pays for the work, which is quiet. Cochrane-Dumas says that it’s about getting to know drug users and where they hang out. Users will be more likely to ask for help from someone who has already helped them when they are ready.
“They always know that I got them something. “They can’t wait to see me,” she told me.
One day, they’re going to be in trouble and ask, “Hey, how can I get some help?” I’m sick and tired of doing this.
Frustrating realit
But David Baer sees that this doesn’t always happen. He says that when he gives out tickets for having drugs, most people just crumple them up and throw them away.
During a ride-along with CBC News, he is called to an overdose a block away. A young man is passed out on the sidewalk after taking opioids. He has just been given naloxone to reverse the effects of the drugs. As the man wakes up, the paramedics tell Baer that they did the same thing twice for him the day before.
It’s a frustrating fact of addiction that Baer has to deal with several times a day.
He said, “I’ve known that guy for three years, and I’ve seen him get worse and worse.” “He used to take meth, but now he’s out here every day taking fentanyl.”
Stephen Deloriea, who lives a block away, is also using fentanyl and meth to deal with his anxiety. He is quiet and has been living on the streets of Portland for a year.
He has a tent cover in his hands that he uses to carry his stuff, like the cans he collects to trade for drugs. He used to be scared of getting in trouble with the police, which he compared to being called into the principal’s office as a “bad kid” at school. Now he says he has more time to deal with his “own problems.”
Even though other things haven’t changed much, his story shows that one goal of decriminalization, which is to get rid of the stigma around addictions, may be changing.
“It has made it easier to get things done without worrying about being a criminal.”