Instead of facing arrest, those found by law enforcement with personal-use amounts of drugs would face a civil citation, "like a traffic ticket", and not a criminal citation, said Matt Sutton, spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance.
Under the new system, addiction recovery centres will be tasked with "triaging the acute needs of people who use drugs and assessing and addressing any on-going needs thorough intensive case management and linkage to care and services".
The addiction recovery centres will be funded by millions of dollars of tax revenue from Oregon's legalised marijuana industry. That diverts some funds from other programmes and entities that already receive it, like schools.
The ballot measure capped the amount of pot tax revenue that schools; mental health alcoholism and drug services; the state police; and cities and counties receive at $45 million annually, with the rest going to a "Drug Treatment and Recovery Services Fund".
The fund will be awash in money if the sales trend for marijuana continues as expected.
In the 2020 fiscal year, marijuana tax revenues peaked at $133 million, a 30 per cent increase over the previous year, and a 545 per cent increase over 2016, when pot taxes began being collected from legal, registered recreational marijuana enterprises around the state.
The other recipients of pot tax revenues are now saying that, after assessment and related treatment options are set up, the distribution of those revenues will deserve another look. A leading lawmaker agrees.
"In the future, as Oregon's treatment programs reach full funding, the state should evaluate what other services would benefit from our continually growing marijuana tax revenues," Oregon Education Association president John Larson said in an email.
Larson said a "balanced approach to budgeting" will support communities and students. The OEA union represents about 44,000 educators.
State Sen. Floyd Prozanski, chair of the Senate Committee On Judiciary and Ballot Measure 110 Implementation, said he expects Oregon's cannabis tax revenues to increase exponentially if recreational marijuana in the United States is legalised. He expects that to happen within four years.
That would make the Drug Treatment and Recovery Services Fund "oversaturated with revenue" as out-of-state consumers legally buy Oregon's potent marijuana, Prozanski said in a telephone interview.
"It would be foolish for us as a Legislature to think that the voters would want us to put hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars into a program that would be, at that point, I would think, having a gold standard" in addiction recovery services, the Democrat said.
But Sutton noted that besides traditional treatment services, the fund would also be spent on housing and job assistance to provide long-term stability for people struggling with addiction.
"I can't imagine a situation where this fund becomes oversaturated anytime soon," Sutton said.
Oregon is a pioneer in liberalising drug laws. It was the first state, in 1973, to decriminalise marijuana possession. In 2014, Oregon voters passed a ballot measure legalising recreational use of marijuana. But Sutton said there are no plans to pursue legalisation and a regulated market of hard drugs in Oregon.
Addiction recovery centres must be available by October 1. One centre must be established within each existing coordinated care organisation service area.
After decriminalisation, about 3700 fewer Oregonians per year will be convicted of felony or misdemeanour possession of controlled substances, according to estimates by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. The measure will also likely lead to significant reductions in racial and ethnic disparities in convictions and arrests, the state commission said.
Drugs specified by the measure include LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, methadone, oxycodone, and MDMA — commonly known as Ecstasy.
While this approach is new in the United States, several countries, including Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland, have already decriminalised possession of small amounts of hard drugs, according to the United Nations.
Portugal's 2000 decriminalisation brought no surge in drug use. Drug deaths fell while the number of people treated for drug addiction in the country rose 20 per cent from 2001 to 2008 and then stabilised, Portuguese officials have said.
- Associated Press
