Portland City Council passes open-use drug ban
Not a fan of Fox, but there are stats in this article that are worth noting and I didn’t see them in the others.
Copy/pasta if you don’t want to give them the click, bolding is mine:
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - The Portland City Council passed an open-use drug ban Wednesday with a unanimous vote.
The ordinance won’t alter BM 110, which was passed by voters in 2020 and decriminalizes the possession of hard drugs and will go into effect as soon as it’s authorized by the Oregon Legislature or a court approves the ban.
While there’s already an ordinance to ban drinking alcohol in public, the new ordinance would add controlled substances. Those who violate the ordinance could face a fine up to $500 or spend six months in jail.
During public testimony, local business leaders from across Portland expressed their frustrations in how drug use has affected them.
Jeff Miller, CEO of Travel Portland, says in 2019 hotel occupancy was 85-90% in the summer. Now four years later, occupancy is at 63%. Miller says he believes the decrease in hospitality is linked to drug dealing and usage.
“Most cities rebook 70% of those conventions in Portland. We’ve rebooked 30%. They said we’re not coming back. Portland is too dangerous,” says Miller. “If leisure in business travel do not come back you as a city, and we as an organization will see those revenues dropped dramatically.”
David Friedericks of Portland Fire & Rescue Station 1 says his station alone responded to a total of 76 overdose calls over Labor Day weekend and calls the high volume of calls is disheartening.
“In some cases we treat the same patient in the same week. And we know through our partners of AMR, that the same patient has overdosed multiple times in a day,” says Friedericks. “I know that even when we try to help, our help is unwanted, wares on all of us.”
Tony Vezina of 4D Recovery Services says he doesn’t think the ban will be efficient.
“It may just kind of hide addicts. I was an addict; I was on the street before I had to hide,” says Vezina. “It may create a limited intervention that is only applied to people we can see in downtown Portland smoking in front of businesses using fatal or high addictive drugs.”
Vezina believes there needs to be a sensible intervention and bring in additional resources to prevent people from getting addicted provide treatment are and provide long-term recovery support.
Add comment