Stupid is as stupid votes

Measures of incompetency

Three short years ago, a majority of voters in this state bought into a naïve experiment called Measure 110. Billed as a ‘compassionate’ alternative to incarceration, Measure 110 intended to drive drug addicts into treatment programs instead of jail cells. But as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Unfortunately and predictably, Measure 110 failed spectacularly. It has truly only succeeded in driving the annual numbers of vagrant drug addicts through the stratosphere and in the process, destroying both our cities and forestlands in its wake.

This was once a pristine campground Photo credit: Author

To be sure, vagrancy and homelessness existed before the slimy ink of Measure 110 was ever put to paper, but like a breath of fresh air to a smoldering fire, the de facto abolishment of criminal penalties for ‘personal use’ quantities of any illicit drug has fanned the more banal passions of tens of thousands of drug addicts to live in the closest thing to a socialist utopia there is on the planet – in Portland, Oregon.

Most of us know that drugs are much like politicians; full of empty promises that cost everything. They might make you feel good for a short time, but in the end, all they accomplish is setting themselves up for the rest of their lives at your expense. Our state’s recent voting history demonstrates that we have a population that is addicted to the empty promises of an easy life and a way out of dealing with reality.

So Oregon ‘built it’, and they’ve been coming in droves ever since; seeking the free services, free food, free needles, and a life free of personal accountability and consequences.

But the carnage as a result of such sophomoric thinking and voting can’t be readily ignored.

According to the CDC, just two years following the passage of Measure 110 in November of 2020, the number of annual drug overdoses (read: deaths) had risen 61 percent contrasted to a 13 percent nationwide increase over the same time span. Tellingly, there aren’t ‘reliable’ numbers available on the same site this year.

However, since Measure 110 went into effect, downtown Portland has visibly transformed from a once beautiful city with a vibrant culture and business future to what has become the nexus for open-air drug markets, violent shoplifters, and now barricaded and empty store fronts. Graffiti and vagrant encampments have replaced the throngs of visitors and tourists who are increasingly advised to steer clear of Portland.

In my own neck of the woods, once beautiful wilderness locations open and suitable for family recreation are now cluttered with abandoned and burnt-out cars and campers. Piles of human waste and garbage are dangerous to stumble across because of the toxic chemicals and the thousands of used needles piled up and littered everywhere.

Abandoned with out of state plates. Photo credit: Author

Our state forests have become the de facto dumping grounds for the drug-addled and disaffected swarms of addicts and drop-outs who are now migrating from other states to Oregon for the prosecution-free drug Valhalla it represents to them.

Speaking from experience, it was hard enough to get the state to do its job of keeping the highways free of debris and abandoned RV’s that are popular with the mobile meth-lab crowd. Word now, is that they positively refuse to address the growing problems of these dump sites and camps in the public forest lands and are opting instead to simply shut access to them down. I’ve personally noted that there are a number of new gates in the area that bar vehicle access to both privately held and state forest lands.

Needles, burner phone pamphlets, trash bags full of waste and empty chemical containers litter the forest Photo credit: Author

So much for the whimsical and significantly naïve, “No financial impact” statement printed on the ballot under Measure 110.

Instead of taking on the difficult task of catching even a few of the cats Measure 110 let out of the bag, our feckless state politicians have doubled down on it, couching the same old recycled platitudes with a trickle of oversight and audit measures. Tellingly, funding recipients of Measure 110’s addiction treatment programs are prohibited from “mandating abstinence.”

Yes, you read that correctly. Grant-funded providers can’t require drug addicts to, well, stop being drug addicts. And there it is. In black and white.

The idiots at the helm don’t truly want you to abstain from taking dangerous drugs and doing the Timothy Leary, ‘Tune-in, Turn-on, Drop-out’ on society. It is in fact, a state-sponsored encouragement to drop out because most of the short-term negative consequences have all been removed. Oregon might as well put out the red carpet and string up neon-signs advertising how welcoming and compassionate we are here for drug addicts.

There is very little publicly accessible information that might provide some insight into the magnitude and nature of the problem we are now facing. For example, I’ve tried finding a total program cost for the Oregon Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the last 5 years to see if there’s a trend. My reasoning here is not to disparage those who need SNAP, but looking at the numbers might be a decent litmus test to show any increase in overall dependency on state run programs as a direct result of the kind of drug-addicted lifestyle the state now sponsors.

One would think, in this day and age, information about such tax-funded programs would be readily available if our government were operated in a transparent way. But you really have to dig to find anything.

I did find some numbers in USDA’s National Data Bank, but there’s no explanation for the totals, or what they truly represent there, so I can’t trust them. The numbers between January 2020 and January 2022 suggest a 54% increase in EBT charges, but I’m probably wrong about what the numbers represent. I welcome anyone who can provide some factual information here because I’d truly like to understand the real impacts, if any.

There are obviously additional factors at play, and measuring SNAP charges is only one tiny thread in the entire fabric of issues we’re experiencing as fallout from the increase in vagrancy and homelessness.

I’m quite willing to be wrong here – but I suspect that the actual numbers are probably more concerning than these. Further, there are no known statistics available for the increase in demand on local food banks and other social services.  What I do see is the sudden increase in the number of vagrants, tents, piles of garbage, abandoned RV’s and trailers that have significantly increased since January 2021.

Incidentally, removing abandoned trailers and RV’s left behind by the irresponsible vagrants costs the county over $6,000 each time they have to have one towed and processed. Why so much? Because they have to be treated and properly disposed of as HAZMAT.

There’s something else.

The lifestyle isn’t affecting just the addicts and the tax payer, it’s also affecting countless children who are the unwitting accomplices and soon to be victims of these irresponsible parents. At one location where I was taking photos, I was stunned to see two young girls, perhaps ages 3 and 4, running barefoot around in disposable diapers amid the trash and needle-infested debris.

Today, very few police officers issue the misdemeanor tickets for ‘minor’ drug offenses and absolutely no District Attorney in the state prosecutes them anymore – the $100 misdemeanor ticket you can receive if an officer finds less than the specified amounts of Oxycodone, Fentanyl, Meth, Cocaine, Heroin or any other ‘hard drug’ in your possession is easily dismissed. The state even provides a 7/24 hotline number for ticketed addicts to request a ‘Measure 110 Health Assessment.’

Just provide the details of your citation to a recording, and, yep, case dismissed.

According to some of my law-enforcement colleagues, the state doesn’t check if you have followed through on the required steps of getting an actual health assessment. Consequently, it has, like almost all state-run programs, become somewhat of a revolving door of state-sponsored dependence.

No fine, nothing on your criminal record. It is truly a “rinse, cycle, repeat” revolving door.

Just don’t require abstinence, because if you even so much as breathe any mention of requiring abstinence from taking dangerous drugs to an addict during treatment, the state will yank your funding faster than Hunter Biden can snort a line of coke.

Oregon is, however, not alone in its line-up of failed social experiments and feckless political hacks.

Next door, the Soviet Socialist Republic of California under dear leader Gavin Newsom today is predictably blaming last weekend’s disastrous freeway fire on… arson. I’m actually surprised they didn’t blame it on fire. I mean, after all, this is the same Gavin Newsom who 14 years ago claimed that his then 10-year plan to eradicate homelessness included such cutting-edge ideas as fixing ‘sleep’ with shelter.

Naturally, the obvious, politically-motivated finger-pointing has no actual evidence to provide even a modicum of support for the theory just yet (I’m sure a politically appropriate looking scape-goat is forthcoming!)

This theory, predictably, is being touted as fact by the blowhards at every leftist propaganda outlet, like Huffpo et al. “Arson WAS the cause of a massive weekend fire,” they boldly proclaim (emphasis mine.)

Strangely, there’s absolutely no mention of why the abundance of combustible materials and homeless encampments were permitted to pile up underneath critical infrastructure to begin with (against most state and local fire codes, mind you) but that sort of information will never see the light of day from our state-approved media.

What might, if not predictably, come after the public arson statement (as fact)?

Certainly, they wouldn’t be so bold to claim that the sea of homeless encampments with their open fires and piles of nearby trash had absolutely nothing to do with the fire, whatsoever.  Nothing to see here folks, move along, right? Well, sorry to disappoint you dear reader, but that is in fact the second sentence that came spewing forth from the public mouthpiece in front of the MSM cameras just yesterday.

The sprawling farms of loose garbage and towering stacks of wood pallets in the homeless camps that were conveniently parked right underneath the freeway had absolutely no bearing on any of it, none. It’s all some arsonist’s doing. It had nothing to do with thousands of homeless vagrants who were burning trash to keep warm in the chilly weather that day. At. All.

There seems to be quite an aversion to facing the actual causes of problems today.

The lightning rod issue of homelessness has become a politically radioactive football - as just seen recently with the LA Freeway fire. They’re completely dancing around the full herd of homeless elephants standing in the room. Live. On TV. Right now.

No politician, no media talking head even so much as attempts to address all the possible sources of our modern problems – and as such, the outcomes of these problems, rather than the causes, have become a type of political ammunition as a result.

Speak up about some of the other causes of homelessness, like maybe some of them are there by choice, and you will be virulently attacked in an attempt to silence your voice. Instead of considering why some might choose that lifestyle, they’ll instead opt to stamp their stinky feet and attempt to scream and shout you down if you dare to suggest that there’s any kind of personal decision at hand in vagrancy and homelessness.

Oh no! Can’t possibly be because they chose to, or ended up there as a result of poor choices, could it?

I believe part of the reason they opt for the attack-dog route is because it takes away the opportunity to assign victimhood and to paint an opposing political party as the guilty oppressors who are somehow responsible for what they’ll frame as this ongoing tragedy.

It can’t possibly be because many have chosen to take up vagrancy as a lifestyle. Nope.

Certainly, much of the increase of vagrancy can be attributed to related economic pressures, such as housing markets and the loss of some types of jobs. However, these factors have always been part of the annual tides of economics in society. There are always some increases, always some decreases.

Have things changed significantly since my wife and I started out all those years ago? Without a doubt! Our first home, a modest 2-bedroom 1-bathroom in Arizona cost us $450 per month with a 30-year mortgage. At the time, it represented just over one full third of my monthly income. Paired with a $340 per month car payment, it was quite the financial struggle, but we were able to find a way.

Today, I look around the county and see the prices for homes are significantly higher in proportion to what they were 30 years ago when we were starting out. I spotted a new light duty truck at a local dealership and it costs more than our first house did.

Certainly, some wages are higher today, but they are not higher in proportion.

I don’t subscribe to the blithe idea that a little more “hard work” is the panacea for these gross imbalances. There are significant market factors – including global trade issues – that have greater influence today than they had 30 years ago that are driving some of the disparities. Simple greed also plays a significant role here, but I also do not subscribe to the equally blithe notion that any government program, such as massively disproportionate taxation or the redistribution of wealth is the answer either.

Because as we can see, these same foolish social experiments that are being foisted on a misdirected and poorly informed population only serve to increase governmental dependency. There are some that suggest that itself is the driving purpose behind all of these experiments – to increase dependency on government, not lessen it.

Whatever the truth is there, Measure 110 is by any account a gross and tragic error in public policy.

What I’m observing and reading is that it’s only an error if your view is from a more conservative position; one that would rather see people prepared, able and willing to work. A view that would try to preserve our public spaces, protect our cities and encourage opportunities for personal and professional growth through a vibrant economy.

It’s a success story if your view is from the socialist, or ‘progressive’ standpoint because it falls under their ‘compassion’ banner. To the progressive, compassion isn’t deterring people from making bad life choices that affect everybody. Not at all.

Compassion is not punishing them at all for making bad life choices and instead enabling it. Because incarcerating people for making really poor choices, like DUII and causing the death and maiming of countless innocent people every day is, well, inhumane, don’t you know?

According to the state’s own data, more than 16,000 addicts accessed the services set up through the Measure 110 grant program in the first year, but less than 1% of those helped with Measure 110 grant dollars were reported to have entered addiction treatment.

Of those who accessed the grant-funded services in 2022, nearly 60% of them engaged with “harm reduction” programs such as free syringe hand outs and naloxone distribution - read: not addiction treatment. [ Naloxone is a medication that can reverse the effects of opioids and is used in cases of real or suspected opioid overdose. I carried some as an EMT under the brand name, NARCAN.]

Yet, ask just about anyone on the street today what the public messaging was about supporting passage of Measure 110 is and was? It was sold to the public that it was all about treatment over incarceration. But if you look closer, you’ll see that Measure 110 was never designed to be about treatment, and it has only succeeded in multiplying the human misery of drug addiction and the cascading consequences for everyone else downstream.

Afterthought

It has been a fact for the entire recorded history of mankind upon the earth that anytime there’s an opportunity to take the easy way out (e.g., some measure of reliance on others to feed and clothe you) or taking the much harder path of generating value, an unfortunately higher percentage of people will opt for the easy route.

This is where socialism fails at the very foundational level, because it pretends that our basic human nature of sinful and selfish motives doesn’t actually exist when they clearly do.

The proponents of socialism must pretend instead that altruism exists and that it exists in sufficient abundance that there will always be heroes of value generation who will keep generating sufficient value such that they will out-generate the never-ending demands of value dependents – those who won’t, can’t and never will generate value, who only consume it.

Oregonian voters fall largely into this latter camp – their voting record demonstrates a completely blind willingness to play around with dangerous social experiments in their pursuit of a government sponsored socialist utopia — one paid for by these mysterious value-generating heroes.

The results are already flooding in – not just here in Portland, but if you’re at all interested in measuring the results of this continual, willful kind of blindness to basic human nature, look at Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, and Detroit to name a few.

What is also evident is that the ‘solutions’ proffered by both sides of the political coin – conservative and progressive alike – will not change much either. This is a far more serious issue than any political slogan or string of promises can address.

It’s a problem of our own nature.

And until each of us individually comes to reckon with that, it will continue to be a predictable outcome.