From what is written here in the article it sounds to me that unlike the Portugal jurisdiction they are trying to emulate, Oregon really hasn't followed through

From what is written here in the article it sounds to me that unlike the Portugal jurisdiction they are trying to emulate, Oregon really hasn't followed through on building out the required health measures, that is treatment, that is required to go hand in hand with decriminalization for the entire concept to be a success. It's very easy to change legislation and deregulate. A lot harder to actually spend the money to build out a robust system of healthcare. Deregulation is a necessary step in order to treat addiction as a disease best fixed with healthcare, but it can't be the single only step. It's dispiriting that people are looking at Oregon struggling through the implementation details and thinking that the whole idea was a mistake and we need to go back to decades old drug war tactics. Not clear at all how those approaches would succeed in this moment as the new problem of fentanyl and toxic drugs has made things worse than it has ever been. The notion that we need to give up and go back to the old ways seems more like a knee jerk reaction and flight to safety of what we've always done.