Obrigado pela hospitalidade

Despite clear public sentiment in favor of recriminalizing possession of hard street drugs in Oregon, the bobbleheads in the state legislature have only just begun hemming and hawing about it.

Yesterday two prominent state senators continued to downplay and deny the obvious need to get the criminal justice system back involved in battling the drug addiction that's destroying lives and the state's cities, especially Portland. At a hearing, these two were literally still jet-lagged from their laughable "fact-finding" junket to Portugal, hosted by the very people who pushed decriminalization on the state's unsuspecting voters. And the pair of politicians acted grateful to the drug enablers for showing them a good time.

Ahead of Monday’s hearing, an array of law-enforcement groups and city officials unveiled a list of proposals that included creating three new criminal penalties: one for possession, one for public use and another for public use in an enclosed space. The coalition pushing those changes said it would favor giving people charged with those crimes repeated chances to avoid criminal penalties if they seek treatment.

How far lawmakers might go is unclear. Some members of the committee appeared open on Monday to some type of criminal consequence for possession. [Floyd] Prozanski, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked witnesses whether it would be feasible to make low-level possession a class B or C misdemeanor, less serious than the class A designation they have asked for.

“What I’m hearing is that law enforcement needs the interventions they used to have,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be class A.”

[Curtis] Landers, the Lincoln County sheriff, disagreed, saying only a more serious misdemeanor charge would give law enforcement enough leverage to convince a person to seek treatment.

[Senator Kate] Lieber, a former prosecutor who just returned from Portugal, said she was conflicted.

“It’s the idea of criminalizing addiction,” she said. “I’m struggling with the idea of using the criminal justice system to [steer people to treatment].”

Wow. With prosecutors like Lieber, you don't need defense lawyers. It's quite apparent that neither she nor Prozanski are part of the solution here; instead, they're a big part of the problem. Until somebody gives their arms a good, sharp twist – like with a ballot measure that goes over their heads to the voters – they'll continue to have us marinating in filth, danger, and hopelessness.