A Portland State University report about the impact of Measure 110 challenges assumptions about law enforcement and the role police officers play as they interact with people with a drug addiction.
A key takeaway: Police officers can only reach so many people – even with the power to search and arrest them.
The report coincides with preparation by Oregon counties to launch new drug addiction treatment programs as part of the passage of House Bill 4002, which will reinstate misdemeanor drug possession charges. That charge carries up to 180 days in jail when people do not enter new programs.
The report, part of a three-year project on Measure 110, does not take a position on whether House Bill 4002 is the best tool for Oregon to combat drug addiction. But it points to historic trends that show that only a fraction of people with addiction have contact with the criminal justice system. As a result, other tools and services besides law enforcement – such as community outreach programs – are needed to address the issue as a whole, the report said.
“Once HB 4002 takes effect, the criminal justice system will once again play a role in enforcing and prosecuting laws against user-level drug possession,” PSU Associate Professor Kelsey Henderson, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement.
The report is based on an analysis of trends police stops, searches, arrests and other trends that stretch from 2019 to 2023. They found that the number of people historically arrested for possession of a controlled substance is just a sliver of the population with an addiction to illicit drugs. In 2016, police arrested nearly 23,130 people for possession of a controlled substance in Oregon. That’s just 7% of about 327,160 people with a drug addiction, the report said.
“Even if the criminal justice system could funnel every drug-related arrest into treatment successfully (assuming the individual needed and wanted treatment) it would only address a fraction of the population with an illicit substance use disorder,” the report said.
Need for support
The new law’s recriminalization will partially unwind Measure 110, which decriminalized low-level drug possession and put a share of cannabis revenue toward addiction services and programs. The revenue will stay in place.
The study doesn’t predict what will happen when the new House Bill 4002 programs start, some as early as September when the law goes into effect. Counties are on different timelines, and so far, 23 of Oregon’s 36 counties have agreed to start the programs.
Even with the programs in place, police and prosecutors will have discretion.
Christopher Campbell, a study author and associate professor in criminology at PSU, said law enforcement and local officials will need to support the new programs for them to work.
“It has to have everybody on board who is supposed to be engaging with the law and within the program,” Campbell said in an interview. “And in this case, it’s going to be deflection programs. If not everybody’s on board, it’s kind of dead in the water, unfortunately.”
The new diversion or deflection programs are supposed to shepherd people away from jail and the criminal justice system towards treatment and recovery.
Campbell said officials need to recognize that this approach will take time to have an effect and that relapses are often part of the recovery process.
“When you come in contact with somebody multiple times, it’s not something to get discouraged necessarily about,” he said. “It’s more that this could be the time. This could be your opportunity to really impact their life.”
Stops and searches
Police agencies criticized Measure 110, which put in place $100 citations for drug possession but lacked an enforcement mechanism. That led to an assumption that police activity fell as a result.
But the study shows police stops, for example, started to lower before Measure 110. Police stops of vehicles and pedestrians are an example of police work that can result in arrests for drug possession or other crimes.
Police stops already were going down in 2019 and early 2020 – before the pandemic and Measure 110. In that period, stops averaged about 50,000 a month, the study found. In 2022, the monthly average was about 39,000 and it’s now on the rise. That indicates that Measure 110 was not the root cause of decreased proactive police work, the report said.
Police searches of people during stops also declined before the pandemic, from more than 1,400 searches a month in September 2019 to less than 1,200 searches in January 2020.
But not all searches turn up evidence of drugs. This means at the current activity level of police enforcement, fewer than 200 Oregonians a month could connect with treatment through police stops and searches, the study said.
The data suggests the need for more tools to engage Oregonians outside of the criminal justice system, the report said. Those include more community outreach and workers who aren’t law enforcement to respond to people in crisis, the report said.
Oregon Capital Chronicle focuses on deep and useful reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy. We help readers understand how those in government are using their power, what’s happening to taxpayer dollars, and how citizens can stake a bigger role in big decisions. We’re part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
