Lawmakers in Oregon and people who help people with drug and alcohol problems both want the state’s law to decriminalize drugs to work, according to Marijuana Moment.
Measure 110, the state’s first-in-the-nation approach to drug addiction has had a rough start since voters passed it in 2020. Grants have been slow to come out, and there is confusion about the roles of the Oregon Health Authority and the oversight council, which are in charge of giving grants to providers who offer treatment, counseling, and peer services to people who can’t afford them.
Low-level drug possession is no longer a crime, and more than $100 million in tax money from cannabis is used to help people get treatment instead of sending them to jail.
But there are still a lot of drug and property crimes in Oregon, and a state audit found that the rollout had a lot of problems.
In January, the secretary of state did an audit of the measure, which found a lot of problems. House Bill 2513 is an attempt to fix many of those problems.
Measure 110 made a new way for Oregon to deal with its drug and addiction problem. A state report says that more than 60,000 people in Oregon have used the services made possible by Measure 110.
