Addiction is a healthcare issue, period. We've spent more than 50 years trying to arrest our way out of this crisis and more people are addicted and incarcerated than ever before! It's time to try a new approach and Measure 110 is that approach for Oregon. Voters were clear about what they wanted in 2020. Let's give this program a chance to at least be fully implemented before judging it!
Dismantling the damage caused by the failed Drug War is going to take some time. Measure 110 only went into effect last year and the new funds for treatment, harm reduction, and recovery services have yet to be fully utilized. We have an opportunity to save lives and create a better pathway for people battling addiction, and for all of us.
SPEAK ON IT! So many people continue to revert back to the status quo of criminalization even when it’s proven to not work or address root causes of some of our most difficult systemic issues such as poverty, homelessness, open drug use etc.
I especially agree with this: “The reality is that complex problems, like houselessness, require multiple policy solutions — some that our society hasn’t been willing to invest in: universal health care, high quality educational opportunities for all, and so much more.”
Measure 110 looks like a great approach to removing stigma, unfair exclusions or program rejection based on a person being impacted by substance use. Treating people with substance use disorder as criminals hasn’t worked on any level. There’s a wide continuum of recovery services made possible by M110. It’s a good thing for Oregon.
Houseless people wind up on the street for many different reasons – veterans suffering from PTSD, women with children escaping domestic abuse, minorities facing discrimination, people living paycheck to paycheck unable to pay their rent, young people dealing with mental illness and people of all ages addicted to drugs. There isn't a single solution. What's needed are solutions contoured to deal with the cause of being on the street. We need appropriate housing options, street-level services, accessible medical and mental health care and a helping hand. Political candidates have to give short answers on the campaign trail. The winning candidates must be willing to understand the complexities of the problem and what it will take to address it successfully. Thanks for your article and your valuable insights.
Couldn't agree more, Tera! No one who is sick gets better when they are denied food, and punitive approaches to addiction are the same. The Drug War has proven to be a failure with racist consequences. Eliminating the harms of unnecessary arrests & funding treatment is a much better policy.
So glad Oregon is doing this - addiction is not a criminal issue - it is a health issue. Measure 110 is being unfairly targeted - I hope people can give it a chance to work
If arresting people worked, we wouldn’t be in the situation that we’re in now with so many people addicted and behind bars. Doctors, addiction medicine specialists, public health professionals and others working on the frontlines of this crisis every day all agree that addiction is a healthcare issue and must be treated as such. Shaming and arresting people doesn’t help them! It only drives them further into the shadows. We should be thankful that we have measure 110 which is pouring literally hundreds of millions of dollars into funding these services that have been proven to save lives. And also please remember - 110 only decriminalized low-level possession of drugs! All other drug crimes remain crimes so police hands are NOT tied. In fact, 110 is now a new resource they can offer as part of community policing efforts to build trust with those they serve.
Measure 110 is the right approach. It’s already helped more than 16,000 people get help. We must increase access to services…arresting people for their addiction doesn’t work.”
Measure 110 revenue is definitely going to help with our drug problem. Unless you have an addiction you can’t really know how difficult this is for people trapped in this disease. The fact that this innovative measure was voted in by our state means that more people either need these services or they have friends or family who desperately need help.
I suspect it is the latter. If you oppose this measure then ask yourself who you know who is struggling with this problem. If you don’t have a personal connection then you cannot understand how important Measure 110 is. Free your mind of stunted growth…the majority of enlightened Oregonian voters have.
As a veteran who has been in recovery for 35 years, I was gratified last fall when Oregon voters said “yes” to Measure 110. Treating addiction as a healthcare issue is long overdue, and I’m hoping that the success of the multi-pronged Measure 110 will light the way for the other 49 states. It takes time to implement the differing components of the Measure but I think Oregon is on the way to becoming the leader in providing all the services needed to help ensure successful recovery for thousands of Oregonians. Bravo to all those who toil everyday in the recovery world. Help is on the way!
Implementing Measure 110 is a human-focused solution that is smart, pragmatic and shifts the focus to treatment and prevention rather than punishment and judgement. But changing systems requires patience and support. This Measure was just passed by voters in 2020. Oregonians need to give this program a chance to be implemented. Casting judgements and demanding changes will just set us back further.
I'm encouraged by what Measure 110 has done so far - including during a pandemic. The holistic approach -- peer-to-peer outreach, overdose prevention, and multiple housing options -- is exactly what is needed. People experience houselessness for a variety of reasons, and need to be met where they are at. There are parents with children, veterans, young and old people, and more, which is why services need to be as easy as possible to access.
Tera Hurst’s recent article seems right on to me. We are dealing with complex social and legal issues that cannot be solved piecemeal; these issues require a broad approach that address all the individual aspects simultaneously. My experience from 30 years as a professional addictions’ counselor in both hospital settings and in private practice has created this opinion regarding one aspect of Bill 101’s far reaching scope: locking people up for their addictions is a fool’s game and serves no purpose other than to perpetuate those addictions and to satisfy the industrial prison system. We live in a culture that is rather punitive in nature which is another topic entirely but bringing that mindset to the conversation of how to curb addictions in our society is simply contraindicative. Which is not to say that some people have not responded positively to being arrested for addiction-related behavior. David Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Nash totally turned his life around from his prison experience. And 38 years later, I have not had another drink of alcohol because of being arrested and by going through the legal system which included the possibility for treatment. But I opine that most addicts and alcoholics only get worse through incarceration as the underlying reasons for them getting addicted in the first place never get addressed. When addicts learn to take responsibility for their use and their sobriety through good treatment practices, they are far more likely to then take responsibility for their associated behaviors that have led to their legal issues. Now you have a sober, responsible citizen and have saved taxpayers a boatload of money seeing as that treatment is considerably less expensive than incarceration.
I appreciate reading something from the perspective of the people who are actually doing the day-in, day-out work of caring for people with addiction. News reports too often center the police, when the entire point of Measure 110 was to follow the medical science and take addiction treatment out of the hands of cops and jailers. People don't need a criminal record because of an addiction condition, they need medical help. And that's what Measure 110 provides in Oregon. It's already working and needs time to grow.
Thank you Tera for writing this!!! Measure 110 funding needs to be given a chance to actually show what we can do with the funding, because the war on drugs has not worked. Arresting people and criminalizing drug use has had zero results and has made the problem much worse. The BHRN funding has not totally been implemented yet because BHRNs and contracts are still in the process of being established. Agencies who received access to care funding had success around that funding but we are still in the funding cycle and the full scope of accomplishments and major milestones met that grassroots agencies completed will not be available until the grant cycle is over in the fall. Personally our agency was able to have a huge amount of success with measure 110 funding in access to care in a short amount of time and we are super grateful for it. Super grateful to Health Justice Recovery for yalls continued advocacy and spotlight on this.
Addiction is a healthcare issue, period. We've spent more than 50 years trying to arrest our way out of this crisis and more people are addicted and incarcerated than ever before! It's time to try a new approach and Measure 110 is that approach for Oregon. Voters were clear about what they wanted in 2020. Let's give this program a chance to at least be fully implemented before judging it!
Dismantling the damage caused by the failed Drug War is going to take some time. Measure 110 only went into effect last year and the new funds for treatment, harm reduction, and recovery services have yet to be fully utilized. We have an opportunity to save lives and create a better pathway for people battling addiction, and for all of us.
SPEAK ON IT! So many people continue to revert back to the status quo of criminalization even when it’s proven to not work or address root causes of some of our most difficult systemic issues such as poverty, homelessness, open drug use etc.
I especially agree with this: “The reality is that complex problems, like houselessness, require multiple policy solutions — some that our society hasn’t been willing to invest in: universal health care, high quality educational opportunities for all, and so much more.”
Measure 110 looks like a great approach to removing stigma, unfair exclusions or program rejection based on a person being impacted by substance use. Treating people with substance use disorder as criminals hasn’t worked on any level. There’s a wide continuum of recovery services made possible by M110. It’s a good thing for Oregon.
Houseless people wind up on the street for many different reasons – veterans suffering from PTSD, women with children escaping domestic abuse, minorities facing discrimination, people living paycheck to paycheck unable to pay their rent, young people dealing with mental illness and people of all ages addicted to drugs. There isn't a single solution. What's needed are solutions contoured to deal with the cause of being on the street. We need appropriate housing options, street-level services, accessible medical and mental health care and a helping hand. Political candidates have to give short answers on the campaign trail. The winning candidates must be willing to understand the complexities of the problem and what it will take to address it successfully. Thanks for your article and your valuable insights.
Couldn't agree more, Tera! No one who is sick gets better when they are denied food, and punitive approaches to addiction are the same. The Drug War has proven to be a failure with racist consequences. Eliminating the harms of unnecessary arrests & funding treatment is a much better policy.
So glad Oregon is doing this - addiction is not a criminal issue - it is a health issue. Measure 110 is being unfairly targeted - I hope people can give it a chance to work
If arresting people worked, we wouldn’t be in the situation that we’re in now with so many people addicted and behind bars. Doctors, addiction medicine specialists, public health professionals and others working on the frontlines of this crisis every day all agree that addiction is a healthcare issue and must be treated as such. Shaming and arresting people doesn’t help them! It only drives them further into the shadows. We should be thankful that we have measure 110 which is pouring literally hundreds of millions of dollars into funding these services that have been proven to save lives. And also please remember - 110 only decriminalized low-level possession of drugs! All other drug crimes remain crimes so police hands are NOT tied. In fact, 110 is now a new resource they can offer as part of community policing efforts to build trust with those they serve.
Measure 110 is the right approach. It’s already helped more than 16,000 people get help. We must increase access to services…arresting people for their addiction doesn’t work.”
Measure 110 revenue is definitely going to help with our drug problem. Unless you have an addiction you can’t really know how difficult this is for people trapped in this disease. The fact that this innovative measure was voted in by our state means that more people either need these services or they have friends or family who desperately need help.
I suspect it is the latter. If you oppose this measure then ask yourself who you know who is struggling with this problem. If you don’t have a personal connection then you cannot understand how important Measure 110 is. Free your mind of stunted growth…the majority of enlightened Oregonian voters have.
As a veteran who has been in recovery for 35 years, I was gratified last fall when Oregon voters said “yes” to Measure 110. Treating addiction as a healthcare issue is long overdue, and I’m hoping that the success of the multi-pronged Measure 110 will light the way for the other 49 states. It takes time to implement the differing components of the Measure but I think Oregon is on the way to becoming the leader in providing all the services needed to help ensure successful recovery for thousands of Oregonians. Bravo to all those who toil everyday in the recovery world. Help is on the way!
Implementing Measure 110 is a human-focused solution that is smart, pragmatic and shifts the focus to treatment and prevention rather than punishment and judgement. But changing systems requires patience and support. This Measure was just passed by voters in 2020. Oregonians need to give this program a chance to be implemented. Casting judgements and demanding changes will just set us back further.
I'm encouraged by what Measure 110 has done so far - including during a pandemic. The holistic approach -- peer-to-peer outreach, overdose prevention, and multiple housing options -- is exactly what is needed. People experience houselessness for a variety of reasons, and need to be met where they are at. There are parents with children, veterans, young and old people, and more, which is why services need to be as easy as possible to access.
Tera Hurst’s recent article seems right on to me. We are dealing with complex social and legal issues that cannot be solved piecemeal; these issues require a broad approach that address all the individual aspects simultaneously. My experience from 30 years as a professional addictions’ counselor in both hospital settings and in private practice has created this opinion regarding one aspect of Bill 101’s far reaching scope: locking people up for their addictions is a fool’s game and serves no purpose other than to perpetuate those addictions and to satisfy the industrial prison system. We live in a culture that is rather punitive in nature which is another topic entirely but bringing that mindset to the conversation of how to curb addictions in our society is simply contraindicative. Which is not to say that some people have not responded positively to being arrested for addiction-related behavior. David Crosby of Crosby, Stills and Nash totally turned his life around from his prison experience. And 38 years later, I have not had another drink of alcohol because of being arrested and by going through the legal system which included the possibility for treatment. But I opine that most addicts and alcoholics only get worse through incarceration as the underlying reasons for them getting addicted in the first place never get addressed. When addicts learn to take responsibility for their use and their sobriety through good treatment practices, they are far more likely to then take responsibility for their associated behaviors that have led to their legal issues. Now you have a sober, responsible citizen and have saved taxpayers a boatload of money seeing as that treatment is considerably less expensive than incarceration.
I appreciate reading something from the perspective of the people who are actually doing the day-in, day-out work of caring for people with addiction. News reports too often center the police, when the entire point of Measure 110 was to follow the medical science and take addiction treatment out of the hands of cops and jailers. People don't need a criminal record because of an addiction condition, they need medical help. And that's what Measure 110 provides in Oregon. It's already working and needs time to grow.
Thank you Tera for writing this!!! Measure 110 funding needs to be given a chance to actually show what we can do with the funding, because the war on drugs has not worked. Arresting people and criminalizing drug use has had zero results and has made the problem much worse. The BHRN funding has not totally been implemented yet because BHRNs and contracts are still in the process of being established. Agencies who received access to care funding had success around that funding but we are still in the funding cycle and the full scope of accomplishments and major milestones met that grassroots agencies completed will not be available until the grant cycle is over in the fall. Personally our agency was able to have a huge amount of success with measure 110 funding in access to care in a short amount of time and we are super grateful for it. Super grateful to Health Justice Recovery for yalls continued advocacy and spotlight on this.