You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Oregon Becomes First U.S. State to Decriminalize Low-Level Possession of All Drugs

HeadlineFeb 02, 2021

In Oregon, a voter-approved ballot measure went into effect Monday, making it the first state to decriminalize low-level possession of all drugs. Oregon will use the savings from reduced prison time to fund crime prevention and addiction treatment programs.

Drug Policy Alliance director Kassandra Frederique wrote, “Today, the first domino of our cruel and inhumane war on drugs has fallen — setting off what we expect to be a cascade of other efforts centering health over criminalization.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top