Voters in Oregon will decide in November whether to decriminalize all drug possession, in what would be a groundbreaking decision that ends the decades-long war on drugs. The ballot measure would end criminalization of simple possession of any drug, and at the same time would use revenue from marijuana sales to establish a drug treatment and recovery service outside the criminal justice system.
The proposal is modeled on a similar effort In Portugal to remove criminal penalties and focus instead on treatment. It was originally conceived in Oregon to combat the dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths in the state, but more recently has received support from the criminal justice and Black Lives Matter movements, as people of color have disproportionately high rates of incarceration for drug offenses.
Meanwhile in California, a court battle is brewing between the state and many cities that want to overturn the mandate allowing home delivery of marijuana statewide. The cities—including those that have banned commercial pot sales—say home delivery would create a chaotic market for illegal marijuana while undercutting local control of pot that was guaranteed in the 2016 law legalizing the drug.