A Shifting Regulatory Drug Regime: What Measure 110’s Successful Campaign Teaches us About Decriminalizing Drugs in the United States

Abstract

In 2017, the US Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis as a public health emergency. In the United States, Oregon is one of the most challenged states when it comes to addressing substance abuse and mental health problems. At the same time, it ranks almost last of all 50 states and DC in the percent of people over the age of 12 who need drug addiction treatment but are unable to get it. Additionally, Oregonian law enforcement arrested 8,881 people for simple drug possession in 2018, which is approximately one arrest per hour. This is costly to the state in terms of time and money and to taxpayers whose taxes support the incarceration of all of these individuals. Additionally, drug prohibition in Oregon and the rest of the country imposes disproportionate harm on black, indigenous, and people of color. Data from Oregon’s Criminal Justice Commission reports that African-Americans were convicted for cocaine possession at a rate more than 100 times that of white defendants in Multnomah County in 2015. Drug policy experts began to draft Measure 110, a drug decriminalization initiative now known as the Drug Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Act, in mid-2019 to address these costs, the misdirection of resources, the lack of treatment access, and the racial inequities in the state. The Yes on 110 team campaigned through the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement that swept through Portland, and emerged victorious at the ballot box in November of 2020. No other state has succeeded in passing drug decriminalization in the penal United States. This thesis sheds light on the variables that contributed to the passing of the measure and makes recommendations to policy advocates in other states about how they might pass similar initiatives. It offers insight regarding how they might draft their campaigns and the messaging they should use. In order to isolate these variables, I conducted 10 interviews with experts with ties to the Measure 110 campaign and performed detailed analyses of other drug policies utilized throughout the world. Ultimately, there is no fool-proof path to victory for drug decriminalization advocates. However, proponents can glean advice from my recommendations for their own campaigns so that health-based approaches to drug regulation can spread throughout the United States.