By Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon lawmakers are starting to wade into the work of monitoring whether the state’s new drug possession law will successfully help the state combat Oregon’s fentanyl addiction and overdose crisis.
House Bill 4002, which took effect on Sept. 1, is just beginning to roll out. The bill recriminalized low-level drug possession and provided funding so county officials, if they desire, can set up deflection programs that help people avoid charges if they seek treatment or other recovery services.
For now, the state has little information about how effective the programs will be in keeping people out of jail and getting them in treatment in the 28 counties that are participating.
What is on the rise since Sept. 1: The number of drug possession arrests statewide, Ken Sanchagrin, executive director of Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, told lawmakers Tuesday in the Joint Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response.
In the first week after the law took effect, police arrested 227 people for drug possession. In comparison, police only made an average of about 50 arrests a week for drug possession after the passage of Ballot Measure 110, which decriminalized low-level drug possession in 2021.
The increase is not all due to the new law. When police arrest people for possession of controlled substances, suspects can end up facing a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the situation. The law only added a misdemeanor, leaving more serious misdemeanor and previous felony charges in place.
In the first three weeks of September, Oregon police logged 650 arrests for possession of controlled substances. But some of those involved people who also had outstanding warrants or other charges, meaning that deflection would not be an option for them. In the entire group, 167 arrests were made for only possession of a controlled substance.
From arrest to treatment
The police encounters have included some success stories. In Deschutes County, for example, police contacted a man in a car who just used fentanyl. The officers found he was open to treatment and helped him enroll in a treatment center, where he started an opioid treatment medication within two hours and entered an inpatient detox facility. By Sept. 12 – less than two weeks before the new law started – he was in a sober living house for people in recovery.
Rep. Jason Kropf, the committee co-chair, said the example is what the programs aspire to, but stressed more work is ahead.
“I’m here for the long term to continue the work in this space,” said Kropf, D-Bend.
Deflection numbers also will take awhile to trickle in because some of the programs give people time to decide whether to participate. In some cases, an arrest or citation is recorded and that person may ultimately participate and avoid court charges.
Of the participating counties, 10 of them have programs that are running, including all three counties in the Portland region. Some rural areas, like Baker County, have also started programs. The others will start in October and later.
Complaints about funding
When lawmakers passed the bill, they designated nearly $21 million for counties and tribes to participate and cover administrative and startup costs like staffing and contracts. A total of $211 million is designated for related services, like recovery houses, residential treatment facilities and medication treatment in jails.
The state allocated $4.3 million to Multnomah County and $2.1 million to Lane County for deflection programs while giving a minimum of $150,000 to rural counties.
Sanchagrin of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, which handled the grants, said it heard from many rural counties that $150,000 was “wholly insufficient.” That amount, combined with the quick turnaround needed to start the deflection programs, discouraged some of the smaller counties that don’t have dedicated staff to apply for grants, he said.
The eight counties that are not launching deflection programs are all rural: Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jefferson, Lake, Sherman, Wallowa and Wheeler.
If the funding increases and counties have more time in the future to join, that may bring in smaller counties, he said.
Still, he said, those that are participating came up with impressive ways of “doing more with less.”
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene and the committee’s co-chair, said he’s concerned that some counties are putting limits on who can enter deflection and people will enter the court system instead.
“Where are we going with this?” he said. “The reality is we’re basically setting up a system that’s not going to have equal protection.”
Sanchagrin said the definition of deflection is very broad, a point the grant review committee discussed. But he said lawmakers should look at the results in individual counties for what works and doesn’t work.
If one county has only a few successes and another has hundreds, he said, “then I think that will be a point of discussion for you all.”
This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
