Washington should follow Oregon’s lead in decriminalizing hard drugs

By a robust majority of 58.5 percent, Oregon voters have passed Measure 110, which decriminalizes possession of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and other opiates.

Starting next year, drug possession will draw a civil infraction, similar to a speeding ticket. Those cited will have a choice of paying a $100 fine or showing up within 45 days for an assessment of their drug use. At this assessment they will be offered treatment and other services, but enrollment in treatment will not be required.

Oregon is the first state in the country to take this step, but Washington may not be far behind. Treatment First Washington (TFW), a nonprofit affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, is planning to introduce legislation with the same aim in 2021. TFW had hoped to have it on our ballot this year, but the pandemic made signature gathering for an initiative impossible, so they are looking to persuade the legislature to enact a new law in the session that begins in January.

These measures are another sign of growing national recognition that addiction is a brain disease — a public health problem that won’t be solved by sending people to jail or prison and then releasing them with an unresolved addiction and a record for a felony. That’s not a recipe for a cure; it’s a curse that makes people virtually unemployable.

Drug courts, where people participate in treatment rather than serving a jail sentence, were an earlier step in this direction. Decriminalization of drug possession will take the courts out of the picture altogether for charges of drug possession, but drug courts can continue to serve people with addictions who are convicted of other non-violent crimes.

Both Oregon’s Measure 110 and the proposal being developed by TFW aim to create a robust public health response to addiction. The marquee service would be the offer of treatment, in many cultures, forms and flavors to match the needs of the individual. There would also be connections to health care, housing, peer support and other services.

This is a very tall order. Our state has gotten better at funding treatment and related services, but there is still a significant shortage, and a $4 billion pandemic-related hole in the state budget puts even the progress we’ve made at risk.

Writing a ticket for drug possession won’t do much good if treatment or other services aren’t available. But at least it won’t make that person’s situation worse.

Perhaps we have finally learned during this pandemic that we ought to listen to scientists — and especially to public health experts who keep reminding us that addiction is a disease, and that we don’t lock up people with diabetes if they eat a candy bar.

We have treated addiction as a moral failing for so long it’s hard to break the habit. It’s also hard to believe that the threat of imprisonment isn’t essential to keeping the problem from getting worse. But we know now that those things aren’t true, and that they are the foundation of decades of terrible, destructive public policy.

Most of the casualties in the war on drugs have been people of color and low-income white people. Mass incarceration of people convicted of drug crimes has intensified racial injustice, caused immense family and community disruption, and deepened poverty. That’s why the boards of both the Oregon and Washington campaigns for drug decriminalization include so many Black, Native, and other people of color, people who have lived in poverty, and LGBTQ people.

So we support the idea of decriminalizing drug possession and, even more strongly, expanded funding for treatment.

There will be problems implementing these new measures. It’s not clear what will happen if a person who is cited doesn’t pay the fine or show up for an assessment. It isn’t clear how the system will work if it isn’t properly funded. But whatever goes wrong is likely to be far less wrong than what we are doing now.

This story was originally published November 15, 2020 at 5:45 AM.