Hey friend,
Welcome to Futura Affairs! Let’s get down to drug business.
What’s the future of illicit drugs?
There’s a lot impacted by this year’s election, including the war on drugs. Yesterday Oregon became the first state to decriminalize drug use in its approval of Measure 110. (Including cocaine and heroin.)
Image source: OPB.org
Oregon didn’t vote to legalize drugs. It voted to remove criminal penalties for people who have some in their possession. Instead of going to prison, they can either pay a small fine of $100 or complete a health assessment at a treatment center.
Supporters say addiction is a public health issue and it should be treated as such. They believe taxpayer money is better spent on recovery programs than on prison system systems; and the campaign boldly claims it would “quadruple” funding for recovery treatment centers.
Won’t this encourage people to use more drugs?
That’s how doubters of Measure 110 feel.
Opponents believe if drugs are decriminalized, it removes a barrier for people wanting to use. They believe when a criminal penalty is attached to drug use, it can be used in the courts to force people into treatment when they otherwise would not voluntarily go.
However, the majority of Oregonians believe this is the start of a new chapter in treating addiction. They have reason to be hopeful: Portugal took on this huge social experiment back in 2001. Nearly 20 years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs, vowing to deal with drug use strictly as a health issue, not a criminal one.
It’s not perfect, but research has shown promising outcomes. No one in Portugal is arrested or jailed for having drugs and many more citizens are receiving treatment. Encouragingly, infectious diseases and drug overdoses have drastically decreased in the country, a timely issue in the midst of the 2020 pandemic.
Image source: DrugPolicy.org
What’s next for the war on drugs?
COVID-19 is causing record drug-related issues.
Take a walk on Skid Row, Los Angeles, or around Tenderloin, San Francisco, and you’ll easily see that drug addiction is an epidemic of historic proportions. But it’s not just in cities, it has hit rural areas as well. As if 2020 isn’t hard enough AMA reports more than 40 states have reported an increase in opioid-related deaths this year, and issues related to mental health and drug/alcohol use.
To help reduce this issue, AMA announced an increase in flexibility for providing buprenorphine and methadone people with opioid use disorder, with potentially life-saving implications. On November 2, they announced additional policy recommendations, such as increased access to necessary pain medications to further harm reduction efforts. These are all necessary next steps to fight the war of drugs, but so far it’s not enough.
Is the Measure approved in Oregon the future of fighting the war on drugs in this country? We’ll have to see how this plays out, but many hope this can set the stage for the rest of the country for a highly unmet need.
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Very thought provoking - I like the Portugal approach which gives addicts a much needed lifeline and second chance in life.