I can’t agree with you more there. The way that Oregon decided to go about it was too lax. I was just adding that the way the rest of the country handles it isn’t the way to really help the problem either. That method is too harsh.

We need to decriminalize and regulate the drugs for harm reduction, and force users of hard drugs into treatment. I am totally okay with jail if they refuse the help. Just don’t ruin drug users lives even more with a criminal record, for the crime of ruining their own lives.

Needle exchanges, methadone, nalaxone. All the things that let them keep using instead of getting clean.

2/3 of these are just things that let them not die as a result of use, and methadone is generally used to facilitate getting clean and minimizing withdrawal symptoms, so what exactly are you going on about here? People will use heroin regardless, but if you would prefer more entirely avoidable deaths, sure, get rid of needle exchanges and nalaxone, and enjoy community transmission of HIV and Hepatitis going up along with overdose deaths. That’ll really teach 'em, I’m sure.

These aren’t programs that facilitate ongoing use amongst addicted populations, they’re just stop-gap measures that mitigate the worst outcomes within these groups, which impact everyone. If you think people are just going to stop shooting up because they can’t get a clean needle or might OD on something that’s been cut, I don’t know where you’ve been for the last 40 years.

more people would have called if we had given them “special” tickets. There’s absolutely no evidence for that.

This statement is disingenuous. The citations aren’t “special” just because they are specific. The change in citation involves educating the recipient on the program and what will happen if they do not engage in the program. The “special” citations are clear, written instructions designed specifically to encourage addicted and often unhoused people to participate.

What was done instead was a small number of non-informative business cards (which were often not provided anyway) and regular (uninformative) tickets issued by officers who received zero training on encouraging participation in the program. There were no general orders created for police requiring them to provide instructions to ticket recipients and no training of any kind on implementing the new measure.

Police need to be trained and instructed on how to implement something like this. They can’t be expected to guess what’s needed or to make it up as they go. They cannot be expected to make an effective verbal sales pitch to an addict, or to even try without training. That is not an appropriate way to implement such a measure.

The few police who did their best to verbally explain it and handed out business cards did so on their own, without training or standard process. This program was simply never fully implemented.