Info Magzine: Oregon decriminalizes all medicine, affords therapy as an alternative of jail time

PORTLAND, Ore. – For Janie Gullickson, all-time low got here each slowly and suddenly.

A very long time drug and alcohol addict, Gullickson pushes again on the concept that one horrible day on the road results in an epiphany and a climb again to normalcy. That’s what occurs in films, not actual life.

“I lived within the backside for years,” says Gullickson, now 52. “For me and folks like me, I laid there and wallowed in it for a very long time.”

But when she has to select the bottom level – one which lasted years, not days, she says – it got here shortly after she hit 30 in 1998. At the moment, Gullickson had 5 youngsters by 4 totally different males, ages 5 to 11. She got here residence from work in the future as a locksmith to seek out that her ex-husband had taken her two youngest and left the state. Horrified, devastated and satisfied that this was the start of the top, her life shortly spiraled: She dropped her different son off along with his dad, left her two daughters along with her mother and shortly turned an IV meth person.

Janie Gullickson, a recovering drug addict, was a chief petitioner of Measure 110, which decriminalizes all drugs in Oregon and will prioritize treatment over incarceration.

In jail six years later, Gullickson was considering becoming a member of an intensive restoration program when a “hanging, magnetic beautiful Black lady walked within the room, held up a mug shot and began speaking about being within the very chairs the place we had been sitting,” Gullickson remembers. There was life on the opposite facet of dependancy and jail, the girl stated. However it’s a must to combat for it. Gullickson believed her.

“I keep in mind pondering, I’ll not have the ability to do all that, be what she was, however possibly I might do one thing totally different than this,” Gullickson says. “That day, I felt the door open to alter and therapeutic.”

Now Gullickson, the chief director of the Psychological Well being & Dependancy Affiliation of Oregon, is set to provide different addicts the identical alternative. That’s why she pushed for the passage of Measure 110, first-of-its-kind legislation that decriminalizes the possession of all illegal drugs in Oregon, together with heroin, cocaine, meth and oxycodone. As an alternative of a legal justice-based strategy, the state will pivot to a well being care-based strategy, providing addicts therapy as an alternative of jail time. These in possession can be fined $100, a quotation that can be dropped if they comply with therapy.

The legislation goes into impact Monday and can be applied over the following decade by the state officers on the Oregon Well being Authority.

Advocates say the pivot can be life-changing for 1000’s of Oregonians.

“One of many issues individuals misunderstand is how criminalization creates obstacles to therapy,” says Kassandra Frederique, the chief director of the Drug Coverage Alliance, a nationwide nonprofit devoted to legalizing illicit drug use. “If we would like individuals to make totally different selections, we’ve got to provide them extra choices … ending criminalization will do leaps and bounds round ending disgrace, which robotically opens individuals up for different alternatives.”

Nationally, others are hopeful this might be the primary in a wave of progressive measures that undo years of injury attributable to drug criminalization, which disproportionately imprisoned individuals of colour throughout the U.S.

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, an outspoken critic of the War on Drugs, is hopeful that attitudes around addiction are changing and that soon, drug addiction will be treated like alcoholism, with a focus on rehabilitation, not incarceration.

“I hope that all of us turn into extra enlightened throughout this nation that substance abuse just isn’t one thing that necessitates incarceration, however speaks to different social ills – lack of well being care, lack of therapy, issues of that nature,” says Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., an outspoken critic of the Struggle on Medicine. “In case you’re white and rich, you get a possibility to get a break, go residence to your loved ones and go into some sort of well being care surroundings.”

But it surely’s usually totally different for individuals of colour, Watson Coleman says. Based on the Drug Coverage Alliance, prosecutors are “twice as more likely to pursue a compulsory minimal sentence for Black individuals as for white individuals charged with the identical offense.” And many individuals of colour do time for possession alone: In 2016, there have been greater than 1.5 million drug arrests. Greater than 80% had been for possession solely.

Watson Coleman additionally factors out that it’s far costlier to pay to incarcerate somebody than get them therapy. Rehab packages not solely empower people, she says, however save communities cash.

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In early 2020, the Oregon Well being Authority introduced a 10-year plan to restrict well being inequities throughout the state. Measure 110 can be a vital step in that combat, says Steve Allen, the behavioral well being director on the authority OHA.

Serving to addicts combat dependancy means extra than simply straight drug rehab, he says – dependancy is never an remoted occasion, as individuals scuffling with it are sometimes juggling different crises together with psychological sickness, bodily or dental well being care points, and homelessness. Too many individuals spend an excessive amount of of their lives biking out and in of jails and emergency departments, Allen says, as an alternative of getting the wraparound providers they want. A transfer to handle the entire particular person pays enormous dividends.

“What we all know is that punishment for dependancy doesn’t work, and doesn’t enhance outcomes for individuals,” Allen says. He factors out that the legislation goes into impact at a crucial time: Because the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring 2020, overdoses in Oregon have skyrocketed by 70%.

This system can be paid for by redistributing current marijuana {dollars} that come from the state’s hashish tax, which Allen calls “an enormous benefit” as a result of it doubtless received’t be depending on whims of the native economic system (marijuana funds have gone up just lately, he famous).

Advocates hope different states will observe

Gullickson, who’s been sober since 2008 after a couple of detours, already sees a shift nationally within the dialog round dependancy.

She factors to the October 2020 presidential debate, when then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden stated, “Nobody needs to be going to jail as a result of they’ve a drug downside,” and expressed assist for drug diversion packages. Having Biden within the White Home now “makes an enormous distinction” Gullickson says.

Frederique on the Drug Coverage Alliance agrees and says the Biden administration’s promise to convey science again to the White Home will play an vital function going ahead.

“We have to floor our insurance policies in science as an alternative of stigma and punishment,” Frederique says.

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At the October presidential debate, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden said, “No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem,” and expressed support for drug diversion programs.

In 2018, because the Home studied and voted on payments aimed toward serving to clear up America’s opioid disaster, Watson Coleman launched her personal laws that called for Congress to formally apologize for the Struggle on Medicine and acknowledge the harm it had carried out to communities of colour. It additionally known as for future drug coverage to be floor in “evidence-based well being care options.”

The Struggle on Medicine, Watson Coleman says, “was used as a weapon, as a instrument to disrupt our communities. Notably through the (Richard) Nixon period, it was a disguise to interrupt up and weaken our communities … it wasn’t a struggle on medicine, it was a struggle on poor brown and Black women and men, and it did horrible issues to households for generations.”

However she’s optimistic change is coming. So is Gullickson, who’s dedicated to serving to in any and each manner she will.

Now married and a grandmother of 17 – she’s slowly rebuilt relationships with virtually all her youngsters – Gullickson shares her story and all its warts as a result of she needs others to know irrespective of how ugly or decimated their lives at the moment are, one thing totally different is ready for them.

She believes laws like Measure 110 will create an surroundings the place “as an alternative of being someplace by accident and hoping somebody will stroll in and provide you with hope, we’re doing that proactively.” She is aware of it’ll take time to totally implement and there can be points alongside the way in which. She additionally is aware of if it really works, it might be applied somewhere else and hundreds of thousands of different individuals like her, who as soon as felt hopeless, alone and remoted might discover one thing else, one thing good to stay for.

“If we do that proper in Oregon, I believe there’s a will to do it in every single place,” she says. “We’ve obtained an enormous accountability to indicate that that is the fitting factor, and it may work.”