decriminalization

In parts of the state, people are waiting weeks for a public defender — but even in King County, where it's a government job with good pay, public defenders say there aren't enough.

King County’s new prosecutor Leesa Manion took office this month. KNKX's Lilly Ana Fowler talked with Manion about legalized drug possession, bail reform and how crime is being handled in King County.

Oregonians voted to legalize the use of the psychedelic drug psilocybin in supervised facilities in 2020. But 27 of the state’s 36 counties now have the issue on their ballots again. The vote will have implications for residents seeking treatment across the Pacific Northwest.

Since Oregon residents voted in 2020 to decriminalize hard drugs and dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to treatment, few people have requested the services and the state has been slow to channel the funds. But Steve Allen, behavioral health director of the Oregon Health Authority, says a milestone has been reached.

Oregon officials and lawmakers say efforts to get millions of dollars in funding to treatment centers and related services as part of the state's pioneering drug decriminalization have been botched even as drug addictions and overdoses increase. Oregonians passed Ballot Measure 110 in 2020 decriminalizing possession of personal amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs — the first in the nation to do so.