Updated: Sept. 24, 1:42 p.m.

The Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group out of New York, is considering Oregon for a ballot initiative decriminalizing the personal possession of most drugs and establishing a fund to create addiction recovery centers.

The effort, Initiative Petition 2020-044 or the 2020 Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, would remove criminal penalties for personal, non-commercial possession of drugs listed as Schedule I, II, III, or IV by the federal Controlled Substances Act. That would include drugs like heroin, methamphetamine and Ecstasy.

It would classify such possession as Class E violation, “subject to $100 fine or completed health assessment by an ‘addiction recovery center,’” according to the initiative petition.

According to a fact sheet put out by the campaign for the initiative, one in every 11 Oregonians is addicted to drugs and “Oregon ranks nearly last out of the 50 states in access to drug treatment.”

“Research clearly shows that people suffering from addiction are more effectively treated with health services than with criminal punishments,” the fact sheet says. “Making criminals of people suffering from addiction is cruel and ineffective.”

“Criminalizing drugs disproportionately harms poor people and people of color,” it continues. “It saddles people with criminal records that prevent them from getting housing, pursuing their education, obtaining loans, getting professional licenses, getting jobs and keeping jobs.”

The chief petitioners of the Oregon initiative are Janie Gullickson, executive director of the Mental Health and Addiction Association of Oregon, Haven Wheelock, leader of the harm reduction program at OutsideIn and Anthony Johnson, executive director of the Oregon campaign to regulate, tax and legalize marijuana.

“The best way to help people suffering through their addiction is through a humane, public health approach with access to treatment and low-barrier long-term community-based recovery support services,” Gullickson said Monday, “not punishments where people are arrested and given criminal records.”

“This ballot measure is a comprehensive alternative to the status quo,” she added. “The War on Drugs has failed miserably both in monetary cost and lives. It is time for a different approach! One that is backed with funding for harm reduction, treatment services and long term community-based recovery support.”

Matt Sutton, a spokesperson for the Drug Policy Alliance, said the effort in Oregon was “very preliminary.”

“We had to file the ballot initiative,” Sutton said, “because in Oregon it is a rather lengthy process.”

“It’s really way too early to determine whether or not we’re actually moving forward,” he added.

OPB reports that the Drug Policy Alliance has “received major funding from billionaire investor George Soros.”

Sutton said the group wasn’t only looking at changing the law in Oregon. They are simultaneously looking at a variety of states that could be open to similar legislation.

“It’s hard to tell whether Oregon will be the right state to do this in and what the next steps are,” Sutton said.

However, he added, it does make sense in Oregon, where there are already tax dollars coming in from legal recreational marijuana/

“This plan would reallocate marijuana tax dollars to treatment,” he said. “It’s kind of a win-win for everyone.”

The 2020 Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act is not the only initiative petition related to decriminalizing drugs that could make its way to the 2020 Oregon ballot. The Psilocybin Service Initiative, a prospective ballot measure that would legalize psychedelic mushrooms, was certified in early September and is now in the process of gathering enough signatures to go to voters in November of next year.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052 lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

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