What can Scotland learn from Oregon’s experiment with decriminalising drugs? May 29
We have spent the last couple of weeks doing a house swap with a former colleague in Portland, Oregon. This beautiful state, bisected by the mighty Columbia River, is bigger than the UK but the population is just four million. It has strong connections with Scotland - many Scots came here in the gold rush of the 19th century. Mostly, they didn’t make their fortunes and had to find what living they could. Now, wine is grown in the rolling Dundee hills and you might see a hiker go by in a north-western version of the kilt.
Another - coincidental - link is that Oregon and Scotland have almost exactly the same drug death rate per 100,000 people - 25 in Scotland, 26 in Oregon. Oregon has taken the bold step of legalising possession of all drugs. Scotland, although it has a devolved government, has nothing like the powers of a US state to try new approaches. But many people in Scotland are keen to take radical action - so it is interesting to see how this is working in Oregon.
The first US state to legalise personal quantities of all drugs
Two years ago, Oregon became the first - and only - US state to decriminalise possession of small quantities of all drugs including heroin and fentanyl. Measure 110 was voted through in a local ballot and included the decision to divert a major proportion of the state’s tax revenue from legal cannabis cultivation towards helping drug addicts. It was inspired by the example of Portugal where, since addiction started to be treated as a disease, drug deaths have fallen.
The measure has attracted a lot of criticism - the Economist recently portrayed it as a failure which has seen death rates double - against a 50% average in the US. However, all of the western states that run along the Pacific Highway from California up to British Columbia in Canada have seen a similar increase in drug deaths - even though none of the others have yet legalised drug possession (although BC is about to).
Cannabis was legalised first, over a number of years, starting with clinics for medical use. Since 2015, anyone over 21 can buy marijuana and there are shops and farms across the state. Growing cannabis is now a billion-dollar business in Oregon - the state’s most valuable agricultural product - and raises millions of dollars in tax. It is an increasingly competitive market though - prices are falling and big players are trying to edge out the smaller growers.
1 The kiltmaker’s view
John McClain is the owner of Stumptown Kilts. He has reinvented the garment as a stout piece of workwear in organic cotton or polycotton, in plain or camouflage colours. “We don’t use tartan because we wanted it to be accessible to everyone. You don’t have to have a Scottish connection to wear this.” McClain is also a metal worker and he has added a bandolier - like a Mexican bullet belt - around the top which can be used to fasten leather bags or tools onto the kilt. The sporran is incorporated into the design as a double fabric pocket on the front. It is a great garment for hiking or working outdoors, he says, because it offers complete freedom of movement, along with protection and durability.
McClain is generally supportive of drug decriminalisation. “I enjoy marijuana. Before legalisation, there was always the threat that you might be sent to jail just for doing something you enjoy.” On the extension of the legalisation to possession of all drugs, he thinks it makes sense, asking: “Someone is an addict - so you are going to put them in jail?”
“The Oregonian” reports that shopowners in downtown Portland are complaining of an increase in anti-social behaviour. McClain does share some of these concerns but says it is not really an issue in the trendy Alberta neighbourhood where his store is. Homelessness is a separate but related issue and certainly there are problems - 40% of call-outs to the Portland fire brigade are to homeless camps. “You do see a lot of litter build up, even though there are bins nearby. Just because you are homeless, you don’t have to be a slob.”
2 Legalised marijuana - inside the Flower Room
In the Flower Room in the cool town of Bend to the east of Portland, I talk to Alex Ciciora. He was a cultivator for many years and knows a great deal about the plant - the Thurber cartoon satirising a wine buff: “It’s a naive little burgundy, but I think you’ll admire its presumption” springs to mind. Alex explains that the more stimulating, sativa-type strains smell a bit more lemony while the sedative ones have an odour of fermenting fruit. Behind him on the shelves are rows of labeled bottles full of dried buds, like in an old-fashioned sweetie shop. He brings them down to let me smell them - they all smell quite different. The jars have names like “Orange Headrush” and “Point Break”. The active percentage of THC is marked on the bottle, from 17% to 29%. The cheapest is Grease Monkey at $4 a gram, the most expensive is Indiana Bubblegum at $14 a gram.
The shop also sells joints in paper tubes, gummies, even chocolate drops, with notes on the packaging claiming the different blends will help you to either sleep, to relax or to concentrate. There are cans of cannabis-infused soda, cakes and vapes. There are also oils that some believe have medical benefits for various conditions - although these are not officially recognised. Alex says that due to the scheduling of the drug by the US federal government, studies are not allowed. But studies are ongoing in the Netherlands, Sweden and the largest studier of cannabis is Israel.
I haven’t used marijuana for years. I don’t enjoy it as I find it makes me nervous, but the experience of shopping in a controlled environment like this must be much better for those for whom it is the recreational drug of choice. You also get transparency about what you are buying - Ciciora says that years ago, a friend of his died after inhaling a black-market cannabis vape that was contaminated with Vitamin E acetate, a toxic chemical.
The people who really shouldn’t smoke this stuff are teenagers whose brains are not yet fully formed - there is growing evidence that out-of-control use of the drug is linked to an increased risk of schizophrenia, particularly for young men. But it is hard to see how legalising it could make it any more available than it already is in a country like Scotland.
There do seem to be an awful lot of “herb” shops around, especially in Portland, some with aggressive banners offering cheap drugs in the windows, often cash-only with seemingly very few customers. It gives a new nuance to the famous Woody Guthrie song “Roll on, Columbia”.
“I don’t love that I have to walk past these stores with my kids. But it was pretty available before and so legalisation didn’t seem like a big social change,” says Lisa, a mum of two in a leafy suburb of Portland. Another local says he doesn’t use it, but his elderly mother, who has chronic health problems, takes the chance to stock up whenever she visits as she finds the drug helps her to sleep.
3 A different angle on cannabis
Logan Brown and Travis Bond grow a form of cannabis that is very low in THC, but high in other cannibinoids, on Simply Sol Farm in the Molalla area, an hour’s drive from Portland. I call them after looking at their website and chat to Logan on the phone before arranging a visit.
Logan, a herbalist, feels that since legalisation, some of the idealism that pot used to inspire has vanished. The cannabis industry has gone hard and fast down the route of breeding for the biggest, strongest highs. Logan is more interested in the medicinal aspect and so they grow the form of the plant classified as hemp. This produces compounds that have a soothing effect on the human nervous system, CBD, CBG and terpenes. Simply Sol sells muscle rubs, pre-rolled joints, tinctures and teas at local farmers markets and online, which have a relaxing effect but don’t get people stoned. “I really believe in the healing properties of this plant. Our customers suffer from anxiety and other conditions and they don’t want to get high.”
It is satisfying to make products that help people, Logan says. But the market is very tough at the moment - many hemp producers in Oregon have gone out of business. Legal growers have to comply with an onerous testing regime and they have compete against both illegal producers and big companies. “It is hard to forecast. The price is dropping and costs are going up”. The couple are trying to educate the market to understand the differential quality of what is available.
It is a sunny evening when we drive out to the farm to look around, and Travis, his sun hat pushed to the back of his head and a hemp joint in his hand, takes time out from constructing a yurt for visiting workers to show me the plants he nurtures. In Oregon, plants have to have less than 1% THC to be classified as hemp.
“The plant has great energy,” Travis says. He believes, like Aristotle, that plants have a soul. He talks to the plants and plays music to them, generally the didgeridoo. Travis says cannabis is more effective at carbon capture than trees and improves the health of the soil. Travis clones the plants - it is more predictable than growing them from seed - in a polytunnel before moving them to an open hooped area. He will cover the hoops only if it gets very wet later in the year - at the moment, the conditions are fine for hemp, and the soil gets very dry as soon as the covers go on.
Travis shows me the fermentation tank where he harvests natural fertiliser from comfrey. Comfrey bushes grow at the edge of their site, Travis harvests the leaves and ferments them in water for a few weeks before drawing off the microbe-rich fluid. “If you have a plum tree you can pick the windfalls and use that; if you have pumpkins you can get phosphorous from them.” Creating natural fertilises is a big cost-saving as well as being consistent with organic cultivation methods. Travis also uses beneficial flowers, fungi and vegetables alongside the hemp to create a biodiverse ecosystem. Eventually, Simply Sol hopes to get organic certification.
Travis’ family is involved in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the 31-year-old started out as an actor and musician. Where is he learning farming techniques? “From friends, from the internet, from books.” He occasionally attends the farmers’ markets himself and hears from customers about the benefits they experience - for example, a woman with arthritis in her hands told him the muscle balm has reduced her need for other drugs.
As I leave the farm, Travis goes off to get me some free samples - muscle balm and a hemp joint. I know it is not scientific, but a few nights later, unable to sleep with a tension headache, I apply a little of the balm to my temples and it does seem effective. It subdues my headache for three or four hours, similar to taking a mild analgesic.
4 A problem for Portlandia
“Not only are they mentally unstable, but they are armed to the teeth”, our friend and former colleague Bob says cheerfully as we make our way to a Peruvian restaurant in downtown Portland. He is referring to the homeless drug addicts who congregate in the Old Town area by the Williamette River that runs through the centre of this famously liberal town.
Portland, once a centre of America’s socialist movement, was the scene of major protests during Black Lives Matter. It is a famously liberal town situated in a rural, conservative heartland. One argument for decriminalisation was that non-whites are much more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs and to find themselves in the justice system, getting a criminal record, perhaps going to jail. But critics argue that the policy has attracted more of the US west coast’s transient population of homeless addicts to the town.
They are very visible - poor, lost souls wandering about with shopping trolleys and glazed expressions. There is apparently often trouble, and guns and knives seem commonplace. On a bus into town one day, a man in a marijuana leaf cap sitting in front of me suddenly flicks open a huge hunting knife and hands it across the aisle to a stranger, a guy in a wheelchair who is struggling to undo a string-tied bag. “Thanks” he says, undoes the bag and hands it back.
Deaths among homeless people in Portland, with a population about the same as Edinburgh’s, soared to 193 in 2021, 60% from overdose. Homicides among homeless people - most involving guns - are aso significantly up, at 18. Homicides in the city have doubled, to a record 101 in 2022. The fire department attended almost 2,000 call outs to fires at homeless camps last year. Burglaries rose. The population of Portland is falling - it has gone down by almost 3% since 2020 and the drug situation may be one of several factors. But recent statistics suggest that after rising during and after the pandemic and Measure 110, crime figures may be plateauing.
There is currently a battle raging between the mayor’s office which wants to set up mass tent camps for homeless people on the outskirts of town, and the third sector who fears these will retraumatise vulnerable people and would prefer to see money directed to longer-term remedies.
There are complaints that much of the tax revenue that was supposed to be spent helping addicts has not yet been distributed - but there seems to be little consensus about how to spend it. Money is not a band-aid that can be easily applied to the right place.
5 A conversation in Mitchell
On a trip over to the west of the state, to see a geological formation called the Painted Hills, we stop in what our Lonely Planet guidebook correctly identifies as the friendly town of Mitchell. This is a red part of the state, which apparently wants to leave Oregon and join up with Idaho. Sitting in rocking chairs on the stoop of the Historic Oregon Hotel in the morning. I fall into conversation with other travelers, a couple of female plant-and-butterfly-spotters and a pair of male cyclists.
They ask about Scottish politics. I tell them about Malcolm Offord who failed to win election to the Scottish Parliament, donated some money to the Conservative Party and got a title and a job as Minister of State for Scotland. Now we are expected to call him ‘My Lord’ and he gets to overrule our elected representatives. One of the cyclists, a long-faced man in his 50s whistles through his teeth. “So you can buy a title and a seat in the UK Parliament for $500,000?” “You can get two for that,” I assure him. “Let’s do it!” The group decide to club together and start to try out their new names. “Sounds pretty good”.
The conversation turns to the drug issue. The two women are very knowledgeable - one is a counsellor who works with addicts. The archetypal homeless addict, they say, is an older man who worked in a trade, hurt his back, and can no longer work or pay his rent. His drug use starts to get out of control. He buys an RV and takes to the road. But a couple years down the line, the RV breaks down and he can’t afford to fix it and he ends up on the street. Or in the park.
The botanists are concerned that sensitive environmental areas and parks around Portland are being damaged by the growing homeless encampments - grey water from the RVs and trucks goes into rivers, there is plastic litter, and the wardens who usually do tasks like remove invasive species don’t feel safe going into these areas any more. Long-term use of methamphetamine makes people jumpy and short-fused; fentanyl has other effects on the brain that lead to loss of control and all these things make violence more likely.
It takes a huge amount of effort to fix even one broken life. The most effective approach, they say, has been to segment - for example identifying and driving specific support to military veterans has been pretty successful. They would like to see a similar approach for over 60s next. “You see people in wheelchairs, using walkers, standing in line for the night hostels - it is wrong.”
The women agree the decriminalisation policy was not well thought through. A strong framework for dealing with addicts should have been established before the legal change was made.
Conclusion
Like Scotland and Oregon, many governments across the world are struggling to deal with huge levels of drug addiction and drug death. In 2021, paramedics in British Columbia attended more than 35,000 overdose callouts. The state, which has a population about the same as Scotland’s, has a drug death rate of 45 per 100,000. The authorities in BC have also seen the example of Portugal and are about to deriminalise drug possession.
The initial results from Measure 110 show that changing the label of drug addiction from “crime” to “disease” is unlikely to make much difference by itself. In Oregon, the idea was that police would issue a civil fine to addicts which could be avoided by calling a helpline. But hardly anybody has actually called it - critics say each call has cost the state $7,000.
Drug addiction, like obesity, essentially has an environmental cause although it affects individuals differently. We talk about the “obesogenic environment” - we now understand that people who acquire this chronic health condition are not weak or stupid - a combination of their genetic makeup and the environment they live in makes them vulnerable, in the same way someone else might get hay fever. Equally, there is a lot of money in the drugs business - whether it is legal or illegal. Drugs flow like rain, they are ubiquitous, cheaper than chips. A mighty river of drugs is flowing along the Pacific Highway. One way or another everyone has to cross it. Some people get swept away.
There is no easy answer to how to deal with this issue. Criminal sanction obviously isn’t an effective solution. Areas might as well innovate and try different things - we can learn from each other, from what goes wrong as well as what goes right.
Jackie why can I not share this on Twitter?