My (admittedly limited) understanding is that its sort of an escalating series of interventions, run by a panel of social workers and medical professionals. The

My (admittedly limited) understanding is that its sort of an escalating series of interventions, run by a panel of social workers and medical professionals. The penalties seem to ratchet up as a person’s addiction becomes more and more problematic or impactful on the community, which makes a lot of sense to me. In my home state, Oregon, we voted to decriminalize all “personal use” amounts of all drugs back in 2020. However, the folks who crafted the ballot measure left out a lot of the “stick” parts that have made Portugal’s efforts more successful. That has not worked well. At a time when meth use was already skyrocketing, it has enabled dealers to proliferate rapidly. They simply have to make sure they only carry a personal use amount on them at any given time. I’d really like to see us implement some of the more persuasive elements of Portugal’s model to curb some of the downsides we’re now dealing with.