Portland Regrets Devastating Drug Laws

The consequences of current drug laws in Portland, Oregon, are so devastating that even addicts want drugs to be illegal again, the Daily Mail reported on November 8. In November 2020, Oregon became the first American state to legalize the possession of all hard drugs, including heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Utah, a 33-year-old drug addict from the city, admitted he does not understand why the people of Oregon voted for such a policy.

It made it worse. Don’t get me wrong, it makes it better for me, but getting the police off our backs and giving us free pipes and foil to do our drugs is not going to get us off the streets.
—Utah

Addicts everywhere: When walking through the streets of Portland, locals have to step over used needles, shattered glass pipes and human feces, often while addicts scream at them.

The cry that I hear in downtown Portland over and over again is, “There’s this person who is using fentanyl in front of my child,” or “I’m at a park and this person is clearly struggling.”
—Aaron Schmautz, police union leader

But police cannot do much to improve the situation; they are not allowed to search addicts, let alone confiscate their drugs.

Bitter regrets: Polls show a majority in Portland wants to reverse the law, known as Measure 110, because of its catastrophic effects on the city.

• Accidental fatal overdoses in the region have increased by 500 percent over the past four years.
• Violent crime increased by 413 percent between 2019 and 2022.
• Homelessness was up 29 percent compared to 2022.

[I]t appears that after nearly three years in which Portland’s once attractive and vibrant downtown area has been turned into a tent-covered hellscape of soaring crime, endemic drug abuse and maniacal behavior, the rest of the city has finally accepted that the decriminalization experiment has spectacularly failed.
—Tom Leonard, Daily Mail reporter

The war on drugs: More Western governments are decriminalizing drug use, arguing that legal consequences on drugs deter addicts from seeking help. However, case after case proves that easing drug laws leads to a significant increase in drug use, along with countless other destructive consequences for society.

America is losing the war on drugs. However, there is a simple solution: keeping God’s law. In his booklet No Freedom Without Law, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes:

[T]he problem isn’t with the law, it is with us. We need to change and conform ourselves to that law. We need to replace the wickedness of our hearts with the righteousness of God by writing God’s law in our hearts!