The Failures of Oregon’s Measure 110

by Jake Wasinger | February 23, 2026

In 2020, Oregon passed Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs, including “hard” drugs.^[1] Those who did possess small amounts of these drugs would face a minimum $45 fine (maximum $100), which would be waived by undergoing prescreening for drug services.^[2] The measure was largely deemed a failure and was subsequently modified by House Bill 4002 in September of 2024, recriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs as a misdemeanor.^[3] This change is expected to place hundreds of new Oregonians in jail, disproportionately more of whom will be people of color.^[4]

When Measure 110 was passed in Oregon, it was the first state to decriminalize drugs.^[5] As such, the bill’s successes and failures are useful for future decriminalization advocates to analyze whether and how to alter Oregon’s strategy. Measure 110’s failures can be generalized into three categories: a lack of enforcement mechanisms, a lack of communication, and a lack of care.

The structure of Measure 110 was intended to divert people from the criminal system into drug rehabilitation programs. The $45–$100 fine, when handed out by a police officer, was meant to incentivize drug users to call Behavioral Health Resource Networks (BHRNs) for a free screening, which would waive the fine if completed within 45 days of the citation. However, there were no penalties for failing to appear in court for not paying these fines.^[6] Because of this, the incentive to push people who received the fine towards treatment fell flat; the waiver of the fine made no difference whether individuals sought treatment because individuals would opt to not attend the court proceeding. The bill’s outcome was that only drug users who were independently motivated to seek treatment called the screening number to waive their fine. Sgt. Jerry Cioeta of the Portland Police Bureau mentioned that “exactly two people have actually called [the] number.”^[7]

Even those who have the ability or desire to seek help face significant struggles under the program’s implementation. The citation contained no information about how to dismiss the ticket. Instead, police officers could provide cards with the information on them. Officers could forget to bring this card with them; one law enforcement officer mentioned, with so many cards and citations officers must carry around, it became difficult to navigate.^[8] All information not located on the ticket, such as that the screenings were confidential, had to be communicated orally by a law enforcement officer. There was no training or communication offered to officers, even by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), the organization specifically tasked to ensure adequate implementation. Further, these citations were distributed unevenly; for instance, an individual is 20 times more likely to receive a citation in Josephine County than in Multnomah County.^[9] The disparity may lie in officers’ skepticism over the effectiveness of the citations. Some officers reported feeling the citation will not get drug users access to help, and performing paperwork for a citation unlikely to yield results is wasteful and annoying.^[10] These officers contend that long wait times for treatment post-screening prohibited the citations from being effective. As one officer put it, “we aren’t going to buy-in if there is no treatment.”^[11]

Even those who receive all of the necessary information to complete their screening still faced difficulties reporting this to the court to waive their fine. In practice, the system required individuals to receive a mailer after a successful screening which they were then required to provide to the court. The problems here are obvious; many of these individuals lack mailing addresses and placing the burden on them is a strong disincentive. Further, providing the court with the mailer involves court bureaucracy, which can be time consuming, redundant, or otherwise frustrating for individuals with little incentive to report their screening to courts.

Long telephone wait times, complicated paperwork, and unintuitive systems are burdensome for seeking treatment, but if people cannot receive care afterwards, these systems are moot. If there are no drug treatment centers with beds available, people cannot receive treatment. The number of citations individuals receive will not change this fact. Thus, any successful decriminalization program must have an adequate drug treatment service operation, and the reality is that Oregon does not have one. A report done by Oregon Health and Sciences University indicated that 49% of needed drug treatment services were missing.^[12] Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being earmarked towards these services, there is evidence that the funding mechanisms from the measure were insufficient.^[13] Organizations were required to submit grant requests to the OHA but limited staffing capabilities there made it ill-equipt to handle the requests. Further, the grant-making process was complicated and burdensome for some organizations, and there was little training from OHA on how to interpret grant-making rules or how to otherwise navigate the grant application process.

In general, any decriminalization plan has the twin aims of reducing drug abuse and placing people outside of the criminal system. Regarding the latter goal, Oregon was successful; hundreds, possibly thousands, of those who would have otherwise been incarcerated are not. This is a majorly overlooked success that simply cannot be overstated. Especially when considering Oregon’s history of disproportionately arresting people of color, taking people out of the criminal system is a markedly good thing.^[14] For many Oregonians, this success was overshadowed by the belief that Measure 110 failed at its other goal of reducing drug abuse. Such a perception may have been a factor in the measure’s speedy recriminalization.

Future decriminalization efforts can learn from Oregon’s many implementation failures. One problem was the lack of information given to drug users. Citations should have all of the information about the screening process listed on the citation itself and it should not be left to the unfettered discretion of each officer how and what information they will disperse. Information about how and who to contact, the fact that the meeting will be confidential, and the process for waiving the fine should be provided clearly to every person who receives a citation. Law enforcement officers also appear less likely to give citations when they are skeptical of their usefulness. Ensuring the system works would make it more likely that officers provide the citation, but so too would specific training for law enforcement officers. Another problem was the complicated legal bureaucracy, creating difficulties in waiving the fine. Organizations performing the screenings could relay whether a successful screening was completed directly to the courts, saving time for individuals looking to waive the fine. The largest problem, though, is an inadequate enforcement mechanism pushing people towards seeking treatment. It may be that no incentive is needed; maybe the reason drug users desire but do not receive treatment is a lack of beds or resources for them. In this case, a robust treatment program is itself sufficient to push drug users towards screenings and treatment. If the assumption that there must be an enforcement mechanism to push drug users to seek treatment holds true, then a $45 fine with no further penalty is insufficient to motivate anyone to seek treatment.

Oregon’s failed implementation of an otherwise remarkable decriminalization plan may make it less likely that future decriminalization bills are passed. Opponents to future decriminalization plans in other states now have a case study showing the limitations of such plans. Optimistically, the flawed implementation also provides excellent lessons for future decriminalization bills to consider, such as how to streamline the grant-allocation process, how to distribute information about the program, and how to ensure a robust and well-funded drug treatment program before implementation.

^[1] Michelle Wiley, Drug possession is a crime again in Oregon. Here’s what you need to know, Oregon Broadcasting Network (Sept. 1, 2024), https://www.opb.org/article/20... [https://perma.cc/D5EV-WHTX].

^[2] Id.

^[3] Id.

^[4] Id.

^[5] Danielle Good, Gillian Leichtling & Stephanie Pustejovsky, Oregon Decriminalizes Drugs: A State-Level Process Evaluation of Early Implementation (2023), Comagine Health and Vital Strategies, https://comagine.org/sites/def... [https://perma.cc/LUS4-YZTL].

^[6] Id.

^[7] Tony Schick and Conrad Wilson, Oregon’s drug decriminalization aimed to make police a gateway to rehab, not jail. State leaders failed to make it work, Oregon Broadcasting Network (Feb. 14, 2024), https://www.opb.org/article/20... [https://perma.cc/9LUK-F39W].

^[8] Good, Leichtling & Pustejovsky, supra note 5.

^[9] Id.

^[10] Id.

^[11] Id.

^[12] Katie Lenahan, et al., Oregon Substance Use Disorder Services Inventory and Gap Analysis, OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (Sept. 30, 2022), https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HSD... [https://perma.cc/7Q2Q-PGHR].

^[13] Schick and Wilson, supra note 5.

^[14] Good, Leichtling & Pustejovsky, supra note 6.