Under the new law, possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine will be as a misdemeanor and punishable by up to six months in jail.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill Monday restoring criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of hard drugs, reversing a first-in-the-nation law that advocates had hoped would help quell a deepening addiction and overdose crisis.
Under the new law, the possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine will be classified as a misdemeanor and punishable by up to six months in jail.
Drug treatment will be offered as an alternative to criminal penalties.
Yeah, this. It’s the story the world over when neoliberalism tries to be progressive, because neoliberalism is quite happy to be progressive when it doesn’t cost anything.
Lax drug enforcement laws were great! You could spend less on police and incarceration, and it’s fine since the fallout from drug related crimes only affects poor people anyway.
Once it started to affect rich people, though, then the calculus starts, and there’s no way to effectively monetize treatment, mental health care and public housing, so enforcement it is!
The part I don’t get is why they were willing to decriminalize it but they weren’t willing to regulate it and allow it in dispensaries.
THAT is where the money is. America is built on cash crops. People will happily pay taxes out the ass for tobacco, alcohol, weed, acid, cocaine, and shrooms. I also personally think coffee should be added to that list. For the record, I’m not a fan of cocaine or coffee, but some people swing that way, and id rather them swing there than meth.
Honestly, it feels hypocritical, but I agree that opioids and meth cross the line. I have heard maybe 3 anecdotes of people that can maintain a functioning addiction on heroin and zero for people who can contain themselves with meth.
Allow the weed, acid, and shrooms (and MAYBE cocaine) in the dispensaries, take the tax money, GIVE IT BACK as housing assistance and universal basic income. Give security, opportunity, and therapy to opioid and meth users. Watch them become productive calm non-violent stoners.
Because they’re not just idiots, they’re puritanical idiots.
Tons of people have opiate/opioid addictions and function without you ever knowing; same as amphetamine. People in government and high business positions. It’s not just cracked out people who are on heroic doses, you can absolutely be a functioning addict.
The difference between something like hydrocodone and heroin, or adderall and meth, is much smaller than you think, on a milligram for milligram basis.
Fair enough.
Personally, I have only ever had consistently hostile interactions with meth-heads.
I do my best to err on the side of the adult choice to have the freedom of a vice. For me its tobacco, weed, and beer, and I am so fucking sick and tired of prohibitionists (generally people who are or were on probation and now want to act like they have the moral high-ground on the subject) trying to take that right away, or at least punish me for opting for it.
You can’t just dispense hard drugs. It’s federally illegal, and while the feds have adopted a look away policy for marijuana, there’s no guarantee they will for others. There’s also the whole lack of banking access for any money that could be made.