Not a fan of Fox, but there are stats in this article that are worth noting and I didn’t see them in the others.
Copy/pasta if you don’t want to give them the click, bolding is mine:
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - The Portland City Council passed an open-use drug ban Wednesday with a unanimous vote.
The ordinance won’t alter BM 110, which was passed by voters in 2020 and decriminalizes the possession of hard drugs and will go into effect as soon as it’s authorized by the Oregon Legislature or a court approves the ban.
While there’s already an ordinance to ban drinking alcohol in public, the new ordinance would add controlled substances. Those who violate the ordinance could face a fine up to $500 or spend six months in jail.
During public testimony, local business leaders from across Portland expressed their frustrations in how drug use has affected them.
Jeff Miller, CEO of Travel Portland, says in 2019 hotel occupancy was 85-90% in the summer. Now four years later, occupancy is at 63%. Miller says he believes the decrease in hospitality is linked to drug dealing and usage.
“Most cities rebook 70% of those conventions in Portland. We’ve rebooked 30%. They said we’re not coming back. Portland is too dangerous,” says Miller. “If leisure in business travel do not come back you as a city, and we as an organization will see those revenues dropped dramatically.”
David Friedericks of Portland Fire & Rescue Station 1 says his station alone responded to a total of 76 overdose calls over Labor Day weekend and calls the high volume of calls is disheartening.
“In some cases we treat the same patient in the same week. And we know through our partners of AMR, that the same patient has overdosed multiple times in a day,” says Friedericks. “I know that even when we try to help, our help is unwanted, wares on all of us.”
Tony Vezina of 4D Recovery Services says he doesn’t think the ban will be efficient.
“It may just kind of hide addicts. I was an addict; I was on the street before I had to hide,” says Vezina. “It may create a limited intervention that is only applied to people we can see in downtown Portland smoking in front of businesses using fatal or high addictive drugs.”
Vezina believes there needs to be a sensible intervention and bring in additional resources to prevent people from getting addicted provide treatment are and provide long-term recovery support.
Out of sight out of mind! It has never worked before, but maybe this time is different. We should keep trying the same solutions over and over again and hope it might work one of these times. /s
Works for alcohol. Can’t remember the last time I saw someone falling down drunk on the street.
I get the impression you haven’t actually spent much time in downtown. I was walking to a show at Roseland last Thursday and saw two people hammered on Broadway that came out if El Gaucho, being loud and obnoxious as addicts get. Can’t say I saw anyone shooting up or smoking meth on that same stretch, though it would have been just as unpleasant.
Falling down drunk and consuming alcohol in public are two different problems.
When’s the last time you saw someone on a street corner knocking back a paper bag full of Mad Dog? Because it’s been a looooong time for me.
Stopping the frequent public fentanyl and meth use is going to go a long way.
Surely fines will stop an addict!
6 months in jail will go a long way.
So in the end they’ll come out of jail with a bad rap sheet, no home or work anymore. Surely that’ll help them beat the substance that makes them escape reality!
Put users in jail! It’s worked for the last 100 years! It’s how we don’t have any drug users anymore!
Jail and confinement makes it worse actually. Especially if you have other mental health issues you’re dealing with. Normally I’m fine and function reasonably well, but after spending 3 days locked in an 8’x10’ room at multnomah county jail I was really slipping. Paranoid, vivid visual hallucinations, and some auditory stuff. You get the idea.
That was supposed to be in one of the nicer areas. Most of the people I saw were simply thrown in solitary confinement. Which is considered torture by the UN.
Thank you Portland for trying to find a humane alternatives to putting everyone in prison when what they need is help.
While I agree with you, they never ended up getting them help. So now they’re smoking on my doorstep—literally—and they still have no resources.
You can have the drugs. You can do they drugs. But if you do them and someone can see you—jail. What did we give all those tents out for?
This was the biggest problem I had with decriminalized drug use, Portland did not have the infrastructure to support people when the bill was voted on so instead of helping people we just made neighborhoods more dangerous for people.
Drug possession was already decriminalized in Portland
Yeah, drug possession isn’t what I was talking about. I don’t really care if people do drugs because it’s their choice. I don’t really do drugs because, from a personal standpoint, I don’t like how even alcohol or caffeine (which I do take) effect my brain. I’m saying if someone can do meth outside my front door and put me and my family in danger it ceases to be about a person’s personal choice because it is now effecting others. And before anyone points it out, I am well aware that this sounds like I’m being selfish, but this isn’t actually about me. I know for a fact that others feel this way. They are worried that they will be assaulted because they can’t do anything about these people, either helping them or defending themselves, and the people who can help the people who need it can’t or won’t.
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Definitely need some course correction. The current solution isn’t tenable, but I’m hopeful for better outcomes.
When? Next decade? They’re not doing anything. Absolutely nothing.
- Make drugs legal.
- hand out tents
- allow people to park makeshift trailers on residential streets
- ignore all pleas from locals to get git rid of meth labs and homeless camps outside their homes
- stop responding to 911 calls pretty much at all (try calling 911. Lmk how long it takes)
Whatever I can go on and on.
I get that Portland is trying not to fuck with the people at the bottom, but if they don’t do anything, that’s all they’ll have left.
I say this as I browse for housing outside of Oregon because I’m sick of mentally ill drug addicts screaming out all night long as they wander the streets around me.
We only started to allocate funding for BHRNs last year. Takes a while for these services to be set up and start operating in full capacity.
Where can I find information on the status, due date, and how the money is being spent?
Pointless. No mental health? Lol. This is just a clinic and no one will do anything with the money besides pocket it.
Got an address. Of one? A date? Nah
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Those who violate the ordinance could face a fine up to $500 or spend six months in jail.
These two are always so disparate. Do they think that someone who can’t afford $500 only makes $1000 per year?
