When police officer Eli Arnold stops a homeless man smoking methamphetamine on the street in Portland, he simply writes him a ticket with a $100 fine.
Since hard drugs were decriminalized in Oregon three years ago, there are no arrests, just the fine and a card with a telephone number where the user can get help.
“Give them the ticket number and they’ll just ask you if you want treatment,” he tells the man.
“Just call the number, the ticket goes away.”
In February 2021, possession and use of all drugs — including cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and fentanyl — was decriminalized in the western state. Sale and production remain punishable.
Like in Portugal, where drugs were decriminalized two decades ago, the idea is to instead treat users as people who need help.
But unlike in Portugal, there is no robust public health system in the United States.
The country is also in the grips of an epidemic of fentanyl — an opioid up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, which is laying waste to communities everywhere.