Transforming Justice Coalition 2024 Priorities: Defending Measure 110 and Opposing HB 4002

For 2024, the Coalition's legislative priorities are: 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 values 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 must invest in wraparound services and addiction treatment services without re-traumatizing and funneling people into the criminal justice system. We cannot regress back to the failed war on drug tactics that harm Oregonians, making drug addiction, overdose deaths, and homelessness more difficult and expensive to solve. This is critical work that we continue to support in order to protect the goals of Measure 110.

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

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

2. We support 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 support the creation of more proactive, peer-led teams trained in working with people who experience houselessness, addiction, and untreated mental or behavioral health disorders. System navigators with lived experience are far more effective in connecting people to services and de-escalating community crises than law enforcement.

3. We support 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 meet the needs of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other people of color have been historically underfunded in Oregon. To ensure everyone who needs services receives and benefits from them, we must 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.