The rose bed edges, once clean and straight, are now blurred with wayward grass. In many rose beds, tufts of grass and weeds grow between rose bushes. The once manicured boxwood shrubs in the Shakespeare Garden are now riddled with blight. Thistle and other weeds which Landers said were once never allowed to thrive in the garden are now part of its landscape.
***8220;The City of Roses? Now it's the city of weeds,***8221; he quipped.
I really don't care if drug use is decriminalized.
But, that doesn't mean that crimes committed by users and addicts should be allowed.
What Portland did was not just decriminalize drugs but quit punishing crime committed by drug addicts.
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The streets of downtown Portland, Oregon, resemble an open-air drug market.
Heroin, meth and fentanyl use is rampant and often visible on city streets. Portland police officers drive by homeless addicts buying and using.
The signs of drug addiction are actually increasing throughout the state, according to law enforcement sources. Oregon ranks second-highest among U.S. states for substance abuse with nearly one in five adults addicted.
In November 2020, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 110. The Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act secured 58% of the votes and decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs such as heroin, meth, cocaine and fentanyl.
he new law made possession of those substances no more than a Class E violation, the equivalent of a traffic ticket punishable by a maximum $100 fine. But the fine is dismissed when someone who is fined calls a help hotline, Lines for Life, and completes a health assessment. The idea is to connect drug abusers with services and treatment instead of putting them behind bars.
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Spoiler
Sixteen months into this first-in-the-nation experiment, the numbers paint a bleak picture. Drug overdose deaths hit an all-time high in 2021 with 1069, a 41% increase from 2020. And very few people are getting into treatment. According to The Lund Report, after one year, just 136 people had entered treatment, less than 1% of those helped by Measure 110. But the actual number may be even lower.
David Murray is a senior fellow in the Hudson Institute who advised drug czars in two different presidential administrations.
"It is predictable, was predicted and now, unfortunately, is coming to pass in front of our eyes," said Murray, "It is a tragedy and a self-inflicted wound."
The Oregon Judicial Department reports that, through the end of May, police throughout the state had written 2,576 tickets for drug possession since Measure 110 was enacted. Seventy-five percent of the tickets resulted in convictions, the vast majority because the offender never showed up in court.
Dwight Holton, CEO of Lines for Life, tells Fox News only 116 people have called the help hotline. Sixty-six of those callers just wanted verification of the assessment, so they could void the ticket, Holton said. Twenty-six, he says, were already in services of some kind and didn***8217;t want any more.
"About 20% ***8212; 24 people ***8212; were not previously involved in (addiction) services and wanted resources, so we connected them to relevant services," Holton says.
Mike Marshall, co-founder and director of Oregon Recovers, is not surprised by the dismal treatment numbers following implementation of Measure 110.
"It was never designed to reduce our addiction rates, so it was never designed to deal with our addiction crisis," Marshall says, "It was always meant to deal with the war on drugs."
Oregon***8217;s war on drugs may be over, but other crimes are on the rise and keeping police busy.
"What we***8217;re absolutely seeing is that as drug possession has been decriminalized, property crimes have increased and so has violent crime," said District Attorney Kevin Barton of Washington County, Oregon. Police in rural parts of Oregon also tell Fox News they are seeing more theft as people steal to feed their addiction.
Portland, the state***8217;s largest city, set an all-time record with 90 murders in 2021. Police in Multnomah County link these to Measure 110, saying there's been a rise in homicides tied to drug turf wars between gangs.
Tera Hurst, executive director of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, which is working to implement Measure 110, says the criticism is premature. Only 10% of $300 million in available Measure 110 funds has been allocated to date.
The money is coming from cannabis tax revenue, making it ineligible to be used for treatment, which is primarily covered by Medicaid. What Measure 110 is funding is recovery and harm reduction services.
The first $30 million in grants went to needle exchange programs, peer-to-peer counseling, support housing and even Narcan, which is used to revive people who overdose on heroin.
"I don***8217;t think it***8217;s just about getting folks into treatment," says Hurst. "It***8217;s also about meeting people and getting people out into the streets doing outreach for folks and getting them life-saving drugs. You can***8217;t save somebody if they overdose and die."
The Oregon Health Authority, which overseas Measure 110, also defends the lack of people in treatment.
"People enter treatment when they are ready to," said OHA spokesman Timothy Heider, "The support being built to help people will meet them where they are."
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) ***8212; A bullet pierced a window on The Portland Spirit during a Monday night dinner cruise, a gunshot apparently fired from somewhere on land in the downtown riverfront area.
People who were on the Portland Spirit told KOIN 6 News they heard glass shattering and thought some glasses broke. But they soon realized it was a bullet that shattered a window on the boat.
Another passenger, Jesse Bruno, said he brought his family to the Portland Spirit for a night out on the river since they are out-of-town visitors.
***8220;I was coming out of the bathroom on the Portland Spirit dinner cruise and heard what sounded like someone dropping a glass or a bottle,***8221; Bruno said. ***8220;Turned the corner and saw a couple people staring at the table where my family was sitting at and immediately saw it was a gunshot.***8221;
Bruno also told KOIN 6 News it happened somewhere between the Burnside and Morrison bridges. Investigators found the bullet and are trying to determine if the shooting was intentional or not.
No one was hurt. An active investigation is underway.
Jesse Bruno was a passenger on the Portland Spirit when a bullet shattered a window on the lower deck, June 20, 2022 (KOIN)
Portland protester arrested for twerking in bike lane gets $75,000; woman hit with plastic buck shots to receive $30,000
The city will pay $75,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a woman arrested by Portland police in 2019 after she was seen twerking in a bike lane downtown and had flipped off officers during a protest.
Alonna Mitsch was acquitted of second-degree disorderly conduct at trial in Multnomah County Circuit Court in February 2020.
Under the lawsuit settlement, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland earlier this month, the city says the payout to Mitsch is ***8220;not to be construed as an admission of liability.***8221; Portland***8217;s City Council approved the settlement on June 1.
Mitsch***8217;s lawyer, Maya Rinta, has argued Mitsch was arrested for ***8220;twerking in a bike lane***8221; to the N.W.A. song ***8220;(Expletive) tha Police,***8221; having participated in a counterprotest and stand against white supremacy in August 2019.
Mitsch also challenged the arrest before Portland***8217;s Citizen Review Committee, which hears appeals of findings in police misconduct complaints. The committee last year voted 6-4 to affirm the Police Bureau***8217;s finding that the arrest was reasonable, though many members said they were disturbed by police actions.
At the committee hearing, Mitsch said her arrest was traumatic and she felt police had targeted her because of her dancing. Her attorney told the committee members that the arrest seemed particularly unreasonable when police had escorted Proud Boys and their supporters across the Hawthorne Bridge that day, yet her client, who is Black, was arrested.
Portland police Cmdr. Erica Hurley defended the arrest at the hearing, saying officers had probable cause to arrest the woman who wasn***8217;t allowing traffic to move through. Police cars need to get through traffic just like any other cars, she said.
In another settlement, the city is poised to pay $30,000 in a lawsuit filed by Erica Christiansen in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It goes before the City Council for approval on Wednesday.
Christiansen alleged battery against the city in an encounter with Portland police on Aug. 9, 2020. Around 10:30 p.m. Christiansen was on the sidewalk in the 2000 block of North Kilpatrick Street when an officer pushed her to the ground and shot her at point-blank range five times with penetrating plastic buck shots as he stood over her, the suit alleged.
Christiansen was visiting a friend***8217;s apartment while a protest was occurring at a park nearby. She and others in the area shouted at police to leave the neighborhood when an officer singled Christiansen out, tripped her and then fired less-lethal shots at close range, striking her in the breast, groin, hip and upper thigh, according to her lawyers.
The city argued in court papers that the officers***8217; actions were lawful, justified and necessary to carry out their duties amid a declared riot.
Brass****, why do you stay in that mess? You're a well travelled dood so you know there are a billion nicer places to spend the last 30 or so years of your life.
Brass****, why do you stay in that mess? You're a well travelled dood so you know there are a billion nicer places to spend the last 30 or so years of your life.
Why dood?
Mostly my boy. He turns 21 this year. I'll be making some changes after that.
Might be going back towards Europe for a bit. Either France, Switzerland or Blighty for a stint.