There is some good news for the people of Oregon: they can no longer be criminally liable for possessing small amounts of illegal drugs, including oxycodone, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine, and heroin with the passage of new legislation referred to as Measure 110.
Based on projections, Oregon is poised to become the first state in America to decriminalize the possession of all illegal drugs and forming a rehabilitation program to help people with drug addictions, following a ballot initiative passed by voters during Tuesday's Presidential polls.
Possessing a small amount of the abovementioned drugs would merely be redefined as a civil misdemeanor similar to a traffic violation. The new law would also fund a harm-reduction intervention for people with drug addictions, paid for by a tax on marijuana.
The new measure, with the blessing from criminal justice reform organizations, is intended to prevent people from attending court trial -- and ending up in prison by treating possession as a citation and broadening access to rehabilitation and recovery.
The punishment for such wrongdoing will now be a simple $100 fine -- and marks the country's most important development toward putting closure to the half-decade war on illegal drugs launched by President Richard Nixon.
According to Drug Policy Alliance executive director Kassandra Frederique, "Today's victory is a landmark declaration that the time has come to stop criminalizing people for drug use," The Guardian quoted her as saying.
Oregon has been at the forefront of liberalizing its drug policies in recent years. In 2014, Oregon legalized marijuana and slashed multiple drug penalties from major offenses to misdemeanors in 2017.
Meanwhile, voters in South Dakota, New Jersey, Arizona, and Montana passed new state ballot measures to legalize the use of recreational marijuana -- significant triumphs in the campaign to reverse the ill effects of cannabis criminalization.
