Tera Hurst runs the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which represents over 100 addiction recovery groups. Her organization opposes incarceration for drug use. Aaron Schmautz is president of the Portland Police Associatgion.
On a fact-finding trip in Portugal, the two found themselves doing something they rarely did: talking. Out of that, a promising pilot program was born, reports the Christian Science Monitor in part 1 of a series.
Schmautz believes public drug use should qualify as a misdemeanor. “When you talk to a lot of people who are suffering from addiction, many of them will tell you that their pathway to sobriety was through the justice system,” he says.
During 20 years on the job, the second-generation police officer has seen it all. He recounts seeing a man bathing himself in the contents of a port-a-potty that the city provided for homeless people.
Hurst and Schmautz clashed over the voter-approved passage of Measure 110, which effectively decriminalized drugs for three years. This year, amid a wave of public discontent, the legislature rolled back decriminalization.
Last November, 24 Oregonian lawmakers, treatment specialists, and police went on a fact-finding mission to Portugal to observe the European nation’s 20-year-old drug decriminalization program. Oregon, like so many other parts of the world, is trying to figure out how to lower deaths from drug addiction.
The pilot program that resulted from that trip offers promise for a new path forward, one in which both sides are working together. Treatment providers are teaming up with law enforcement to patrol high drug-use areas in Portland.
When police intercept drug users in dire situations, rehabilitation specialists are on scene to offer a lifeline. The two groups have long disagreed over the most effective way to get people into treatment.
According to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, drug deaths in Oregon spiked by 27% last year. The Pacific Northwest bucked an otherwise encouraging trend: the first nationwide decline in fatal overdoses in five years.
In April, the state recriminalized low-level drug possession.
“Although there was real disagreement about what to do, there was agreement, for the most part, on the human worth of people who have this problem,” says Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and author of “Addiction: A Very Short Introduction.” “So people were fighting, but they were all fighting for the same thing. They were all upset about overdoses. ... The idea of recovery is, I think, a unifying concept.”
A fault line is over the most effective way to get people into treatment. Schmautz favors a tough-love approach; Hurst, a softer harm reduction that emphasizes creating a safe, humane environment for drug users. They can’t be forced into rehab. They have to be ready for it.
One point of agreement: Oregon can’t arrest its way out of its crisis. It’s a mental health and public health issue and should be handled as such. That’s the Portuguese approach. Oregon is still playing catch-up.