On Monday, Oregon’s Democratic Governor Tina Kotek signed into law House Bill 4002, reverting the possession of small amounts of drugs back into a criminal offense and marking the end of a pioneering decriminalization experiment plagued by implementation challenges.
The new law reverses the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act (Measure 110) approved by voters in 2020. While several states had marijuana legalization on their ballots that year, Oregon stood out. The New York Times described its proposal as “one of the most radical drug law overhauls in American history.”
Measure 110 ensured that simple drug possession was responded to with a ticket of no more than $100 and a referral to services. HB 4002 reclassifies the “personal use” possession of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine to be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
