Ever since Portugal enacted drug decriminalization in 2001, reformers have argued that North America should follow suit, but when Oregon and British Columbia decriminalized drugs in the early 2020s, the results were so catastrophic that both jurisdictions quickly reversed course:
Contrary to popular belief, Portugal does not allow consequence-free drug use. While the country treats the possession of illicit drugs for personal use as an administrative offense, it nonetheless summons apprehended drug users to “dissuasion” commissions composed of doctors, social workers, and lawyers. These commissions assess a drug user’s health, consumption habits, and socioeconomic circumstances before using arbitrator-like powers to impose appropriate sanctions.
These sanctions depend on the nature of the offense. In less severe cases, users receive warnings, small fines, or compulsory drug education. Severe or repeat offenders, however, can be banned from visiting certain places or people, or even have their property confiscated. Offenders who fail to comply are subject to wage garnishment.
Throughout the process, users are strongly encouraged to seek voluntary drug treatment, with most penalties waived if they accept. In the first few years after decriminalization, Portugal made significant investments into its national addiction and mental-health infrastructure (e.g., methadone clinics) to ensure that it had sufficient capacity to absorb these patients.
This form of decriminalization is far less radical than its North American proponents assume. In effect, Portugal created an alternative justice system that coercively diverts addicts into rehab instead of jail. That users are not criminally charged does not mean they are not held accountable. Further, the country still criminalizes the public consumption and trafficking of illicit drugs.
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In late 2020, Oregon embarked on its own drug decriminalization experiment, known as Measure 110. Though proponents cited Portugal’s success, unlike the European nation, Oregon failed to establish any substantive coercive mechanisms to divert addicts into treatment. The state merely gave drug users a choice between paying a $100 ticket or calling a health hotline. Because the state imposed no penalty for failing to follow through with either option, drug possession effectively became a consequence-free behavior. Police data from 2022, for example, found that 81 percent of ticketed individuals simply ignored their fines.
Additionally, the state failed to invest in treatment capacity and actually defunded existing drug-use-prevention programs to finance Measure 110’s unused support systems, such as the health hotline.
The results were disastrous. Overdose deaths spiked almost 50 percent between 2021 and 2023. Crime and public drug use became so rampant in Portland that state leaders declared a 90-day fentanyl emergency in early 2024. Facing withering public backlash, Oregon ended its decriminalization experiment in the spring of 2024 after almost four years of failure.
Looks like the same insect-ridden pile of offal, at a somewhat different angle. As in, the entire thing is still about giving a lot of cronies and other clowns made-up jobs and tasty crumbs of power. The only difference is that they are «doctors, social workers, and lawyers» instead of paramilitary and judiciary types. Which is why the former two prefer things “done” this way, obviously. And the lawyers are supported in either scenario.