To be clear, drugs aren't all of a sudden legal now. Small amounts are deemed a misdemeanor instead of a felony. There is still rehab reccomndations in place. Itll be an interesting case study regardless of how it turns out. Perhaps hopefully this will be a sort of beta test to figure out whats effective or not. Because the nixon/Reagan mindset of the war on drugs has obviously not worked out.
No, I understand the difference between decriminalization/legalization. There's been a perpetual unending opioid epidemic in my area since I was a teenager, success cases are few and far between. It takes a lot of comprehensive well managed care to get someone (who is determined) off of heroin, it's not a light task and even the best managed states haven't been terribly successful.
I know you do, but for anyone else who only read the headline before clicking here.
Treatment and management of addiction/addicts is a tricky thing. I see this as preventing some 19 yo who got caught with a bit of coke from ruining the rest of their life with a felony.
My city has a severe drug problem all around. I don't know how much this will do to curb the problem. But im fairly certain it will do more harm than good as far as clearing out the overcrowded jails and courts.
Lastly, As someone who was once court ordered to rehab (for pot) I can confidently say that rehab doesn't help unless the person truly wants to quit.
That's very true, as it's come out since then that it was used to target hippies/black folks and leftist organizers. The war on drugs has always been a tool to punish detractors from the very beginning. It's never been about health or public safety, but politics instead.
So in a competent well managed state that has its shit together I would say "okay, this might be worth a try", concentrating efforts on small time users has been pretty ineffective so freeing up resources to help addicts (the ones that want help, most junkies do not and are already casualties) and go after dealers/distributors might be a good strategy. However in Oregon... well they couldn't stop the business district in their biggest city from getting taken over by a bunch of emaciated looking kids wielding temper tantrums and bike locks.