by Chris Black
Who would have thought that legalizing hard drugs would lead to a bad outcome?
When voters approved Measure 110 in 2020, they made Oregon the scene of a novel social experiment in the US by decriminalising the possession of small amounts of hard drugs and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into substance abuse treatment.
The vote was celebrated as a groundbreaking step toward a compassionate approach to substance use disorders, one that prioritised treatment over punishment. But nearly three years after its passage, the law has become the subject of fierce debate as Oregon, like many US states, grapples with a spiralling opioid crisis.
Unfortunately for more than half of voters, this is a democracy, which means that their opinions mean nothing, and they just have to live in a junkie swamp, because that’s our values.
If they don’t like it, they can move to an autocracy, like Russia or China, where there is no utopia at all.