Tag: oregon

Oregon Governor Signs Bill Overturning Voter-Approved Drug Decriminalization Law

Gov. Tina Kotek (D) on Monday signed into law the sweeping measure the Oregon Legislature passed to combat the state’s fentanyl drug addiction and overdose crisis.

Kotek previously had said she would sign House Bill 4002, which was a centerpiece proposal of the short session. The law puts in place a new misdemeanor penalty for possession of small amounts of hard drugs, with opportunities for defendants to avoid jail if they enroll in programs that aid in their recovery and potential treatment.

In a letter to legislative leaders, Kotek said the state needs to have a carefully coordinated implementation to work as intended.

“Success of this policy framework hinges on the ability of implementing partners to commit to deep coordination at all levels,” Kotek wrote in her letter to Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego and House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene.

The new law will put $211 million towards a variety of court and treatment programs, including new and expanded residential treatment facilities, recovery houses and programs for counties to set up so-called deflection programs that people can participate in to avoid jail and criminal charges after an interaction with police. So far, 23 of Oregon’s 36 counties have agreed to set up those programs, which are not mandatory.

Keep reading

Portland Community College Offers New Class on UFOs

Portland Community College is offering a niche new area of study this spring: UFOs.

“From Film to Real Life? UFOs, UAPs, Government and the Media” is an online class listed for non-credit in a category of study called “cultural exploration.” (Other offerings include low-cost Hawaii travel, foreign films and a “waterfalls and wine” tour of the Columbia River Gorge.)

The class is the brainchild of longtime local television news producer Brian Anslinger, the executive producer of KRCW’s lifestyle show Everyday Northwest. Previously, Anslinger worked as assistant news director and executive producer at KATU-TV.

Part of his mission with the class is to help students decode the confusing landscape of UAP sightings and research. (UAP, or unidentified aerial phenomena, is the updated name for UFOs, unidentified flying objects. Anslinger accepts both.)

“Having been looking at this subject for a long time and different aspects of it, I thought, gosh, if you see what’s happening on Capitol Hill or read headlines, I don’t know how you make sense of what’s actually going on,” Anslinger says.

Keep reading

Liberal state declares war on small farmers and homesteaders: War on food is spreading in U.S. through land-use restrictions, geoengineering and waves of propaganda

War on food is spreading in U.S. through land-use restrictions, geoengineering and waves of propaganda

Remember, it really is all about depopulation

The World Economic Forum warned us several years ago that its ultimate goal was to destroy the middle class. How else would you explain their slogan: “You will own nothing and learn to like it“?

This mantra is playing out in real time in the state of Oregon, and other states, in various forms which we will get into in this article.

Small farmers are under attack in the Beaver State, which has begun shutting down family farms throughout the state under the guise of water conservation and groundwater protection.

The owner of Yanasa Ama Ranch shared a 20-minute video explaining what is going on in Oregon as bureaucrats erroneously classify small family farms and homesteads as “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, in order to shut them down. Any feeding area that has a concrete, rock or gravel floor falls into this category, which would include most small dairy or egg farms.

If you have two or three milking cows, the rancher explains, you are now targeted by the state for closure.

The rancher further explains in the video:

“The state of Oregon has effectively shut down small farms and market gardens on a large scale, and they’re actually sending out cease-and-desist letters to farms and they’re using satellite technology to find their victims and send them these letters that say you can’t operate.”

The below video is 20 minutes but the most critical information is contained in the first 5 or 6 minutes. Note that he says most of these anti-farming, anti-private property laws start in places like Washington and Oregon but end up spreading to other states over time. That is so true!

Keep reading

Oregon Governor Will Sign Bill Overturning Voter-Approved Drug Decriminalization Law

Gov. Tina Kotek (D) said she plans to sign the centerpiece bill that lawmakers passed in response to the state’s soaring drug addiction and fentanyl overdoses.

House Bill 4002, a compromise proposal that won bipartisan support, will recriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs, reversing part of Measure 110, which voters approved in 2020. The bill has provisions to offer drug users multiple opportunities to enter treatment after an encounter with a police officer.

“Finally, reforms to Measure 110 will start to take shape, as I intend to sign House Bill 4002 and the related prevention and treatment investments within the next 30 days,” Kotek said in a statement released late Thursday. “As governor, my focus is on implementation.”

She has 30 business days to sign or veto the 115 bills that were passed, and once that happens, the $211 million lawmakers approved can be distributed. It would provide money for outpatient clinics, residential facilities, sobering centers, opioid treatment in jail, public defenders and court diversion programs. They also allocated $18 million for recovery houses.

A new misdemeanor would take effect in September, with up to 180 days in jail if probation is revoked.

Keep reading

Oregon Legislators Overwhelmingly Vote To Recriminalize Low-Level Drug Possession

Oregon legislators last week overwhelmingly approved recriminalization of low-level drug possession, reversing a landmark reform that voters endorsed when they passed Measure 110 in 2020. Gov. Tina Kotek has indicated that she is inclined to sign the bill, ratifying a regression driven by unrealistic expectations and unproven assertions.

“With this bill,” Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber (D–Portland) claims, “we are doubling down on our commitment to make sure Oregonians have access to the treatment and care that they need.” But Oregon is not merely making sure that people “have access” to treatment; it is foisting “help” on people who do not want it by threatening them with incarceration.

H.B. 4002 makes drug possession a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. A defendant can avoid that outcome by enrolling in a treatment program.

Under Measure 110, by contrast, drug possession became a Class E violation punishable by a $100 fine. Drug users could avoid the fine by completing a “health assessment” at an “addiction recovery center.” The initiative said the assessment should “prioritize the self-identified needs of the client” and refer him to appropriate services. But Measure 110 did not make agreement to those services mandatory.

The initiative’s supporters argued that coercive treatment is both less effective and more ethically problematic than voluntary treatment. “Research suggests that, except in certain circumstances where drug users are uniquely self‐​motivated (such as doctors and commercial airline pilots who fear losing their licenses), coercive treatment is futile at best and may increase the likelihood of overdose in people who relapse after release from treatment,” Jeffrey Singer notes in a Cato Institute blog post.

The policy embodied by H.B. 4002 is notably different from the legal approach to alcohol abusers, who generally cannot be forced into treatment unless they commit crimes such as driving while intoxicated. Measure 110’s supporters argued that abuse of those substances likewise should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal matter.

Over 58 percent of voters agreed. But a continuing increase in opioid-related deaths, coupled with nuisances related to public drug use, soured Oregonians on Measure 110. By last August, at which point the initiative had been in effect for only a year and a half, an Emerson College poll found that 64 percent of Oregon voters favored reinstating criminal penalties for possession.

Keep reading

Oregon House Passes Bill To Reverse Voter-Approved Drug Decriminalization Law

The Oregon House on Thursday passed a proposal to reshape the state’s response to the fentanyl addiction and overdose crisis and put more power in the hands of police and prosecutors to rein in drug users.

The bipartisan vote of 51-7 kicks House Bill 4002 to the Senate, the last step in a long legislative process that started last fall. The bill would unwind voter-passed Measure 110 by putting in place a new misdemeanor charge for drug possession, a move intended to encourage people to enter treatment programs rather than face charges and go to jail. Potential jail time for misdemeanor drug possession would only kick in if a defendant violates their probation.

The bill represents a bipartisan compromise between Democrats and Republicans that was hashed out over hours-long meetings dating to September, with dozens of witnesses from advocacy groups, law enforcement, family members of overdose victims and behavioral health providers giving testimony. Oregon’s district attorneys, police and sheriffs support it, as do cities and business groups like the Portland Metro Chamber of Commerce and Washington County Chamber of Commerce.

“We are in the midst of a profound public health crisis and we must meet it with compassion and courage,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Portland. “These are humans.”

The bill would undo a key provision of the voter-passed Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs and enacted a system of $100 citations that a person could avoid if they obtained a health assessment. Police have said the citation system lacked the teeth necessary to encourage people to enter treatment, and a majority of Oregonians in surveys have voiced support for repealing Measure 110 or parts of it.

Keep reading

Oregon school district under fire for making race ‘main criteria’ in discipline policy

An Oregon school district is being accused of discriminating against students based on their race through its new discipline policy.

Portland Public Schools (PPS) introduced its “Student Support, Discipline & Safety” policy in November. Under the policy, behavioral support plans must consider a student’s “trauma,” “race” and “gender identity/presentation,” as well as whether “social emotional learning” and “restorative justice” are appropriate for them.

The policy further requires each PPS school to maintain a “School Climate Team,” tasked with participating in “ongoing training in implicit bias, antiracism and culturally responsive practices.” Additionally, it mandates that a teacher not be transferred to another location if doing so would “decrease the building’s percentage of minority teachers to less than the student minority percentage in the building” or decrease its percentage of transgender and nonbinary staff to less than 30%.

The complaint filed Thursday by advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) argues PPS is only disciplining select students based on “immutable characteristics” through its approaches, including race. The group is asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate whether the practices are in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Keep reading

Did Decriminalization Boost Drug Deaths in Oregon?

Oregon is considering legislation that would recriminalize low-level drug possession, reversing a landmark reform that voters approved in 2020. Although critics of that ballot initiative, Measure 110, cite escalating drug-related deaths, decriminalization is not responsible for that trend.

Opioid overdose fatalities have been rising nationwide for more than two decades. That trend was accelerated by the emergence of illicit fentanyl as a heroin booster and substitute, a development that hit Western states after it was apparent in other parts of the country.

“Overdose mortality rates started climbing in [the] Northeast, South, and Midwest in 2014 as the percent of deaths related to fentanyl increased,” RTI International epidemiologist Alex H. Kral and his colleagues noted at a conference in Salem, Oregon, last month. “Overdose mortality rates in Western states did not start rising until 2020, during COVID and a year after the introduction of fentanyl.”

That lag explains why Oregon has seen a sharper rise in opioid-related deaths than most of the country since 2020. But so have California, Nevada, and Washington, neighboring states where drug possession remains a crime.

Decriminalization under Measure 110 took effect in February 2021, and a 2023 Journal of Health Economics study estimated that it was associated with a 23 percent increase in “unintentional drug overdose deaths” that year. But “after adjusting for the rapid escalation of fentanyl,” Brown University public health researcher Brandon del Pozo reported at the Salem conference, “analysis found no association between [Measure 110] and fatal drug overdose rates.”

Kral and his collaborators concurred, saying “there is no evidence that increases in overdose mortality in Oregon are due to” decriminalization. That is consistent with the results of a 2023 JAMA Psychiatry study, which found “no evidence” that Measure 110 was “associated with changes in fatal drug overdose rates” during the first year.

Keep reading

Idaho Lawmakers Want To Ban Marijuana Billboards Advertising Dispensaries In Neighboring Oregon

Idaho legislators introduced a bill on Wednesday to criminalize advertising illegal services or products—like marijuana—in Idaho.

Marijuana is illegal in Idaho and in federal law. But states surrounding Idaho, like Washington, Montana, Nevada and Oregon, have legalized marijuana for recreational use in recent years.

Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, told lawmakers on the House State Affairs Committee that there are advertisements for marijuana in Idaho, referencing a billboard in Idaho near the Idaho-Oregon border and newspaper advertisements shared by Rep. Heather Scott, who is from Blanchard in North Idaho near Washington.

“And then another individual sent me—actually on the internet—that you can have drugs delivered to your Idaho doorstep. So I thought this was a little outrageous,” Boyle told the committee.

Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, said she saw a billboard advertising marijuana in downtown Boise.

Co-sponsored by Boyle and Sen. Chris Trakel, R-Caldwell, the bill would create a new section in Idaho state criminal law to allow misdemeanor charges for “any person who willfully publishes any notice or advertisement, in any medium, of a product or service that is illegal under Idaho law.”

Keep reading

Oregon University Will No Longer Give ‘D-‘ Or ‘F’ Grades

Citing a wrongheaded “GPA fixation,” Western Oregon University leaders have announced plans to abolish D- and F grades for students…

They will replace them with “no credit” in an effort to support student success and encourage struggling undergrads to continue their education despite obstacles, they said.

The public university announced in a news release this month the changes would start in the fall.

“Students not earning a passing grade will be required to repeat the course and demonstrate proficiency. Our goal is to ensure that students who have met the core competencies and learning objectives graduate and provide every student an opportunity to be successful at Western Oregon University,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Jose Coll said in an email to The College Fix.

Coll, who took the job as provost in June 2023, said in the news release that “GPAs will now be a true reflection of student success and course mastery; failures will no longer mask the demonstrated abilities of our students when they pass courses.”

The news release stated that “the institutional academic grading regulation will reflect a grade range of A through D; the letter grades of D- and F will be replaced with No Credit (NC) for undergraduate students.”

“The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs.”

The move comes as data from the school shows that 65 percent of freshmen who drop out of WOU have earned at least one “F,” Inside Higher Ed reported.

Western Oregon University acknowledged students receiving “no credit” are significantly more likely to continue with their education than those who fail classes, leading some to accuse the school of allowing “grade inflation” to occur, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Keep reading