Don’t Blame Decriminalization for Oregon Drug Deaths
In March, Oregon legislators overwhelmingly approved recriminalization of low-level drug possession, reversing a landmark reform that voters endorsed in 2020. Although critics of that ballot initiative, Measure 110, cited escalating drug-related deaths as a reason to reinstate criminal penalties, there is little evidence that decriminalization contributed to that problem.
Deaths involving opioids have been rising nationwide for more than two decades. That trend was accelerated by the emergence of illicit fentanyl as a heroin booster and substitute, a development that hit Western states after it was apparent in other parts of the country.
“Overdose mortality rates started climbing in [the] Northeast, South, and Midwest in 2014 as the percent of deaths related to fentanyl increased,” RTI International epidemiologist Alex Kral noted at a January conference in Salem, Oregon. “Overdose mortality rates in Western states did not start rising until 2020, during COVID and a year after the introduction of fentanyl.”
That lag explains why Oregon saw a sharper rise in opioid-related deaths than most of the country after 2019. But so did California, Nevada, and Washington, neighboring states where drug possession remained a crime.
“After adjusting for the rapid escalation of fentanyl,” Brown University public health researcher Brandon del Pozo reported at the Salem conference, “analysis found no association between [Measure 110] and fatal drug overdose rates.” Kral concurred, saying “there is no evidence that increases in overd
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