MARCH 26, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A11
they are housed in a specially designed
and separately secured holding room
within the evidence facility. Once there
is a suffi cient quantity to warrant the
substances being taken to the Brooks
burn plant, property and evidence cus-
todians do so and observe the destruc-
tion,” Trump said.
Police can still arrest those in pos-
session of more than specifi ed amounts
and the courts will still prosecute those
suspected of dealing controlled sub-
stances, said Amy Queen, spokesper-
son for the Marion County District
Attorney’s Offi ce.
“The DA’s offi ce will still see
the citations if they are connected
to another crime, but we no lon-
ger have authority to do anything
to prosecute in those situations,”
Queen said. “We will do everything
we can to connect those individuals to
treatment though.”
In simplest terms, BM110 transitions
from treating addiction as a crime and,
instead, as a public health problem with
the goal of expanding access to addic-
tion services for members of the com-
munity – generally black, indigenous
and people of color – disproportionately
aff ected by criminal penalties.
Because the law took eff ect Feb. 1,
services to provide addiction treatment
still lag behind need. Justin Neilsen,
executive director of Keizer-based
Oregon Recovery Behavioral Health,
BM110 is an experiment and the out-
comes are unknown.
“Court-mandated treatment has
been shown to be highly eff ective, but
even now there is a lack of spaces for
treatment,” Neilsen said. The state has
the less fortunate
patient can fi nd it
more diffi cult to fi nd
services.
Cou n t e r ac t i ng
structural
preju-
dices is the essential
goal of BM110, said
Ron Williams, out-
reach coordinator
for Oregon Health
Justice
Recovery
Alliance and a mem-
ber of the Oversight
and Accountability
Council,
an
appointed
board
helping set policies
needed as aresult of
the new law.
“Substance use
disorder is not a
crime. It should not be considered in the
criminal context, the issue that needs
to be treated as a health issue. There
will still be laws on the books to deal
with the actual criminal elements that
distribute drugs and who are a greater
threat to the community,” Williams said.
Currently, Oregon is 47th in the
nation for access to addiction treatment,
the third highest in untreated addic-
tions and there’s been a 70% increase in
overdose death in the past year with the
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If this is a success, we will see access
improve, and decrease in untreated
addictions and a decrease in overdose
deaths,” Williams said. “We will see
increases in treatment beds, the number
of counselors and the number of men-
tors assisting addicts through recovery.”
Substance use
disorder is not a
crime. It should
not be considered
in the criminal
context.
— RON WILLIAMS
Spokesperson, OHJRA
until Oct. 1 to stand up the new treat-
ment centers.
Neilsen doesn’t see the addiction
screening as an eff ective way to get
addicts into treatment services.
“Statistically speaking, it takes 12
interventions on average for the person
to become or obtain sobriety. We can’t
count what is essentially a fi rst-step
assessment as an intervention,” Neilsen
said.
Even with treating possession as a
crime, the prior system was trying to
achieve more parity across racial and
socioeconomic fractures.
“We are already moving to more
equal reimbursement for the same ser-
vices,” Neilsen said. When the Oregon
Health Plan and private insurance plans
do not pay similar rates for services,
Still, there are those who remain
unconvinced.
Judge Eric Bergstrom, a Multnomah
County Circuit Court Judge, is part of a
judicial outreach organization with con-
tacts across the nation and he’s been
fl ooded with questions about what is
happening.
“Judges in Oregon have already
been empathetic to the needs of addicts.
Drug courts and intensive supervision
programs have high success rates and
low recidivism rates,” Bergstrom said.
“Now those aren’t even an option, and I
think we will lose participation in treat-
ment programs because of the new law.”
Because the penalties are now so low,
Bergstrom said there isn’t enough stick
to encourage people to chase the carrot
of addiction treatment.
“Those fi nes will never be paid and
there’s no incentive to seek out treat-
ment. No one is going to care about a
$100 fi ne or pay it, those tickets are just
going to be torn up,” Bergstom said.
He worries that local police agen-
cies will stop making contacts with
those suspected of user-amount pos-
session and cut off another pathway to
treatment.
The answer to whether the approach
is eff ective is likely years, if not decades,
away.
In the meantime, it might be easi-
est to think about the experiment in
the same vein as the Americans with
Disabilities Act. Creating ramps on
curbs helped every person carrying
heavy bags and pushing a stroller in
addition to those with mobility issues.
BM110 may or may not prove to be as
eff ective.
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