A group of Oregon Democrats will introduce a bill in the upcoming state legislative session to undo parts of a landmark drug decriminalization law, citing rising overdoses.
Measure 110, passed by a ballot referendum in 2020, eliminated criminal charges for possessing small amounts of any drug. Possessing less than a gram of heroin, for example, would be met with only a $100 fine that could easily be dismissed and is rarely enforced.
Amid growing pushback from voters and political pressure from the state’s GOP, Democrats on the Legislature’s addiction committee announced Tuesday a bill that would recriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs as a low-level misdemeanor.
The effort, if passed, would allow police to confiscate and punish the use of certain drugs in public places and parks; the state is dealing with the largest increase of synthetic overdose deaths in the country and the third highest of all overdose deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) .