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Comment by verteu | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't seem like the law worked very well. Overdoses went up, and while this was largely due to covid & fent trends, it certainly was not an obvious success: https://imgur.com/a/45WAB6F

https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.cfsecosystem.com/m110/Presen...

https://www.rti.org/event/oregons-ballot-measure-110-symposi...

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The article mentions a very important decriminalization-agnostic reason why no changes in outcomes were found within their analytic period: treatment took a really, really, really long time to set up, with funding only going out by the time decriminalization was rolled back. There was lack of capacity both in terms of staffing the actual programs, but as well in reviewing the programs.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/14/oregon-drug-decrimina...

Second, M110 funding comes from marijuana taxes, and a significant downturn in funding is anticipated this FY – I don't know the specific numbers, but it's on the magnitude of 25%. This is the context of the article's observations that treatment _still_ is impossible to find.

As a result, I'd argue that Oregon's not going to see many changes in health-related outcomes.

It also didn't worsen things... There is no clear relationship between the passing of the law and any trend.

Homelessness went up, but counting them is hard, and untangling it from pure econ causes is also hard.

This group claims PITC went up year over year. Surged, they said. https://www.dogoodmultnomah.org/homelessness-portland

It would be hard to claim for Multnomah county residents to say things got better regarding the homeless situation after 2020, but the tide could have been coming in for multiple reasons.

The direction of causation there is strange, too. COVID-19 era eviction moratoria expired halfway through June, and records have consistently been beat since then. (There are also anecdotal rumors that people get bussed in from across the country. I think PIT count data collects that, but I need to double-check.)

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/29/oregon-housing-renter...

Exactly.

Treatment doesn't help--it's not something that can be imposed. You force someone into drug treatment, you're either wasting your money or their money. Every immediate family member I have ever had has at least touched on handling addiction--and they have all been adamant that it's useless without the desire. "You want to want to quit smoking, but you don't actually want to quit smoking. I won't take your money when I know I can't help you. Come back when you truly want to quit smoking."

But locking them up doesn't help, either, other than in locking them up when their drug use causes other problems. Same as drinking is legal but drunk and disorderly is not.

The slides you link state that the law had no meaningful impact on overdoses and that it’s probably too early to draw any meaningful conclusions. Given the time it takes to ramp up things like mandatory rehab, it’s not clear it could have that big of a short term impact.

And https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37556870/

I lost my job during Covid. I didn’t start using meth or fentanyl

You seem to be implying we can draw a conclusion from this data point?

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