Transforming Justice Coalition 2024 Priorities: Defended Measure 110 and Opposed HB 4002

In 2024, the Coalition's legislative priorities were: defending Measure 110 and opposing HB 4002.

Ballot Measure 110, passed in 2020, began the process of ending the decades-long war on drugs in Oregon by treating addiction as a public health issue, not a crime. Alongside Oregonians who voted in favor of Measure 110, the Transforming Justice Coalition valued racial justice, equity, and healing, understanding the detrimental harms of failed drug war tactics on Black, Latinx, low-income, immigrant Oregonians, and Indigenous people. We had to invest in wraparound services and addiction treatment services without re-traumatizing and funneling people into the criminal justice system. We couldn't regress back to the failed war on drug tactics that harmed Oregonians, making drug addiction, overdose deaths, and homelessness more difficult and expensive to solve. This was critical work that we continued to support in order to protect the goals of Measure 110.

The policy position of the Transforming Justice Coalition was as follows:

1. We opposed the criminalization of public use and recriminalizing simple possession. We did not support returning to 50 years of failed war on drug policies, rooted in anti-Black racism, that had destroyed and traumatized communities. The criminalization of addiction and poverty failed to invest in the support and services communities and people need to thrive.

2. We supported greater investment for the creation and development of peer-led community outreach teams, with healing/health centered care to connect people to services and de-escalate crises. To facilitate long-term solutions, we supported the creation of more proactive, peer-led teams trained in working with people who experienced houselessness, addiction, and untreated mental or behavioral health disorders. System navigators with lived experience were far more effective in connecting people to services and de-escalating community crises than law enforcement.

3. We supported greater investment in the addiction treatment continuum of care, with a focus on programs that are trauma informed, culturally specific and in multiple languages. Programs and services that met the needs of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other people of color had been historically underfunded in Oregon. To ensure everyone who needed services received and benefited from them, they had to invest in both new and existing programs while providing technical assistance and support to these organizations (i.e., Behavioral Resource Network Programs) to ensure their success.

*House Bill (HB) 4002 revokes the Class E violation pertaining to possession of limited quantities of a controlled substance, and introduces a new misdemeanor that will be enforceable starting September 1, 2024. Every county has the option to establish a deflection program, but it's not mandatory. The Transforming Justice Coalition will be following the implementation of HB 4002 for racial disparities and inequities.