A Reckoning with Drugs in Oregon

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How has Oregon’s radical drug decriminalisation policy changed lives?

In 2020, the people of Oregon voted to decriminalise drug possession. Four years on, Winston Ross explores how the radical policy shift has affected lives across the state.

Four years ago, one of America’s most progressive states passed the country’s boldest approach to drug policy reform yet. Measure 110  came after a spirited campaign targeting the country’s failed war on drugs.

The new law decriminalised possession of all illicit substances, including heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine . The reformers accurately predicted that the new law would result in fewer people of colour being locked up, but it also coincided with the new spread of the deadly drug fentanyl, and a tidal wave of homelessness. 

Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and is far more deadly.  Social workers and police now regularly carry the opioid-blocking drug Narcan to treat people overdosing on the streets. Homelessness also continues to rise alongside the drug’s rampage, creating an epidemic on multiple  fronts.

In A Reckoning with Drugs in Oregon, local journalist Winston Ross explores the complex issues behind Portland’s fentanyl crisis and lawmakers’ recent decision to roll back Measure 110, speaking across the political divide and to many of those in the eye of the storm.  

Presented by Winston Ross
Produced by James Tindale 

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

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