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Nolte: Oregon Dems Surrender to Reality with Move to Recriminalize Drugs
Back in Year One of George Floyd (2020), Democrats in Oregon decriminalized drug use. Then reality hit and hit hard, and now Democrats in Oregon are seeking to recriminalize drug use.
By a 60 percent margin, the lunatic voters of Oregon passed Measure 110 in November of 2020. Here’s how the far-left Guardian explains the Measure:
The state would deconstruct the existing punitive and ineffective system that criminalized drugs, and build a new apparatus in its place. People would no longer face criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of substances like fentanyl and methamphetamine; long-calcified pathways through the criminal justice system that reinforced societal inequalities would be abandoned; treatment options for those struggling with addiction – funded with hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s legal marijuana tax – would be widely available.
The result?
Recent federal data show Oregon had the steepest increase in the country of overdose deaths since the pandemic started – by a staggering 1,500%. Nearly 1,000 people in Oregon died from opiate overdoses in 2022. Public health officials warn the crisis shows no signs of abating.
The result?
According to data from the mayor’s office, there were roughly four times more homicides in 2022 than [Portland’s] 20-year average, with 96 homicides — a significantly higher number than other west coast cities.
The result?
A large encampment of homeless people has forced the relocation of an LPGA tournament from Portland, Oregon, to West Linn, Oregon.
The result?
Homeless camps across the Peninsula Crossing Trail in North Portland — located approximately eight miles from downtown — have changed what once was a desirable neighborhood into an unsafe area, causing some longtime residents to either leave or consider leaving.
Duh.
Oregon and Portland also turned a blind eye to weeks of Black Lives Matter rioting, which created a sense of lawlessness, which created even more crime.
Well, now that reality can no longer be denied: “[A] bill that would undo Oregon’s drug decriminalization law advances through the Legislature,” reports OregonLive. “[T]he prospect of making minor drug possession a crime again has overshadowed all other aspects of the bill, which unwinds Measure 110, passed by state voters in 2020.”
The “other aspects” include $211 million in new spending for “specialty courts, ‘shovel-ready projects’ intended to address addiction and mental health [and] medication to help treat people in jails who suffer from opioid addiction[.]”
The key words there are “help treat people in jail.”
We’re already seeing the negative effects of decriminalizing marijuana. Oregon’s morons went even further. Every drug was decriminalized, including heroin and fentanyl.
You gotta love these arrogant leftists who think they know better through some form of enlightenment that never includes looking back at what actually worked. On an issue as important as this, how can you not have the humility to look back and realize our society has been through this before? The narcotics boom of the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s created a nightmare in our cities — a nightmare of overdoses and violent crime. Then, in the 90s, we figured out how to fix it, or at least get a handle on it, and those cities that took the lead of the urban miracle then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani created in New York came back to life.
Decriminalizing drugs will always create more junkies, which means more tent cities, more violent crime, and an implosion of your city’s standard of living.
I’m sure glad I live here. Yes, we have our own opioid problem. Human nature is human nature. But that problem is not encouraged with decriminalization, nor is it allowed to destroy the standard of living among the law-abiding.
I love watching Democrats get what they vote for. Even more, I love watching them forced to back down like this and admit how wrong they are. It will take Portland a decade or more to recover — if it ever does. Hey, but at least the mean tweets have stopped.
Dummies.
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