In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, decriminalizing possession of small amounts of controlled substances. In 2024, the state passed HB 4002, which made possession a misdemeanor crime, but also allocated millions for counties to establish “deflection programs.” Reporter Ben Botkin recently finished a series of articles for the Oregon Capital Chronicle about deflection programs have looked like in different parts of the state.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, making Oregon the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. What happened next is a well told story. The supply of fentanyl up and down the West Coast exploded, leading to record fatal overdoses in Oregon and a big public backlash against decriminalization.
Lawmakers responded. Last year, they passed House Bill 4002, which recriminalized possession. They also allocated millions of dollars in one-time funds for counties to establish deflection programs, ways to get people into treatment as opposed to the criminal justice system. Deflection programs are now in the early stages in 28 of Oregon’s 36 counties. Reporter Ben Botkin has traveled a length of the state from the north coast all the way to the Idaho border to see how those programs are working. He wrote a series of articles about this for the Oregon Capital Chronicle, and he joins us now. It’s good to have you back on the show.
Ben Botkin: Thanks, Dave.
Miller: How much variation is there between various county systems? I’m wondering how much leeway counties have to create their own programs under House Bill 4002?
Botkin: Counties actually really have a lot of leeway in different ways. One is they have the leeway of whether or not to even participate in deflection, which is why you have 28 out of 36 counties doing the program instead of all 36. Beyond that, counties that opt into deflection can determine who can qualify for deflection, they can determine what the requirements are to successfully complete deflection, and they can also even decide things like how many times can the same person repeat deflection if they need to go back for help. So if you look at the big picture, there are definitely a lot of nuances, from county to county, on what deflection looks like.
Miller: How are deflection programs different from court-ordered diversion programs?
Botkin: The key difference is that, with court-order diversion, you’ve already got a charge filed. You’re already in the system. There’s a judge, and there’s a process that needs to happen before your court record can be expunged and go away.
With deflection, the difference is a police officer will find someone with a small amount of drugs. But before charges are filed, that person in one way or another, will be either told by the police officer or an outreach worker, “Here’s what you can do in order to enter deflection and avoid having charges filed in court.” So from county to county, there’s really this window of opportunity, after that contact with the police officer, to enter deflection.
Miller: You traveled the whole length of Oregon, as I mentioned, to see how these programs are operating in different places. I thought we could go west to east, starting in Clatsop County. Why did you go there?
Botkin: Clatsop County really struck me as an interesting county, just because it’s right along the coast. It’s also bordering Washington state. It’s close to Portland, but it’s also starting out right at the top of the coast, so it’s really a very interesting area.
What I found out in Clatsop County was that Clatsop County’s approach is an incentivized approach, where people who enter deflection can get money loaded onto a cash app on their cell phones when they continue to engage in deflection and go through weekly therapy group sessions.
Miller: I was struck by some of the language that the people used to describe the idea behind this. Can you explain the kind of the reward system that they’re trying to mimic for people who are no longer getting a brief hit in their brains from drugs?
Botkin: So the reward system, it’s not designed to make someone rich by going through deflexion. It’s a modest amount, maybe $10 or so, for showing up. But the idea is if they show up for therapy, cash is loaded onto the app on their cell phone. If they don’t have a cell phone, they’re given one. And it creates a dinging sound. The idea is that then releases dopamine in their brain, which is the pleasure center. The idea is that that becomes one factor that replaces the highs that people may get through prior drug use. There’s this reward and incentive program, but also a little bit of psychology behind it as well.
Miller: Can you give us a sense for the numbers there? I mean, how many people have entered into deflection in Clatsop County?
Botkin: We’ve got about six people or so that have entered into deflection in Clatsop County. Two of them have successfully graduated, and this is for a 3-month program in a relatively smaller county. So the thing to keep in mind about deflection is these programs can be varying lengths. And at this point with the law just starting in September, really, you’re having the first group of graduates finishing up across Oregon.
Miller: Can you tell us the story of one of the people who took part, Maksym Derevianko?
Botkin: Sure, that individual, he’s a crabber. He had a drug addiction to methamphetamine. He became involved in a car accident as a result, got a citation for possession after paraphernalia was found on him, and that then led him into deflection. He’s now finishing that program up and he has this new outlook on his life. After entering addiction following a work injury to deal with pain, he’s now looking at things like, “OK, I’m going to get my driver’s license back. I’m going to no longer use drugs.” So for him, that program has worked and he’s an example of the kind of people and situations that deflection can help in an Oregon coastal county.
Miller: In the Portland area, you focused on Hillsboro in Washington County and spent some time with Officer James Weed, including a stop that he did. Can you tell us what you saw?
Botkin: That officer is a community engagement officer. He does things like checking on homeless people in tents. In this case, he saw an individual kind of slumped over on a park bench in Hillsboro. He went over to engage with that person and see how they were doing and found the methamphetamine. But this was not a situation where handcuffs are placed on you and you’re sent to jail. It was more of a balanced approach where he then calls an outreach worker from 4D who engages in that individual. In that particular process, the individual was not eligible for deflection because of a prior court charge.
Nevertheless, even in those cases, there’s a mindset where they still want to try to connect the people using drugs with outreach workers just to encourage them on that journey into recovery, because that journey on to recovery really is going to look different for each person in each circumstance.
Miller: This was helpful for me to understand because I don’t think I had been aware of this before, that even for people who in any given county don’t fit the requirements for deflection. Some of the infrastructure being built up could still be offered to them. That’s an important point that I don’t think I was aware of before. What are these interactions like between outreach supervisors and people who are found with drugs?
Botkin: They’ll certainly look different from county to county. So, for example, if you’re in Portland, police will drop someone off at a center where they get in that initial assessment. They’re given that opportunity right from the start. But it may look entirely different in some rural counties like Baker County or Malheur County, where a deputy in a rural area simply cannot wait an hour and a half for someone to show up if they’re in some distant remote area. So that person may get a citation and information about who to contact.
But then on the other side, the police will give the outreach workers contact information for that person. So they’ll be making that effort to try to reach that person, whether it’s by phone or looking for them in a homeless encampment. There’s different ways that those connections are made in Oregon, sometimes quicker than others.
Miller: So I want to hear a little bit more about the Portland area. But since you mentioned Eastern Oregon, this did seem like one of the immense challenges is just the physical distances at play here. If an outreach worker, it was gonna take them two hours, say, to get to where a police officer had found somebody, or they’re simply not available to do that, and they get a name and a description of somebody, what’s the likelihood that they can actually track that person down in the coming days to get them into a deflection program?
Botkin: I mean, it’s really definitely a challenge, not necessarily impossible, but certainly you have to have a phone number or if you don’t, you have to know where that person is. So if you have somebody who’s drifting in and out of communities, or you don’t know where they’ll be, that can certainly pose a challenge.
Baker County has had two people start deflection. Part of that’s because it’s a sparsely populated county, so you definitely have smaller numbers of people entering as well, for that reason.
Miller: Ontario, one county over, is just across the Snake River from Idaho where drugs have never been decriminalized and where cannabis remains illegal. What has that meant for the criminal justice system in Ontario?
Botkin: Police officers I talk to will tell you that, in Ontario, you have the interstate. And you also have legalized cannabis. So their impression is that that has created a dynamic where it attracts more people into the community from Idaho who are more likely to use other substances than perhaps it would have in the past. So that’s the dynamic they see as well.
Another factor too we have is that someone from Idaho who’s arrested, if they’re an Idaho resident, is not going to be eligible for deflection. So not necessarily every person who’s arrested for a misdemeanor drug possession charge is going to even be eligible for deflection.
Miller: I want to go back to the Portland area. What did you hear from officers there, or in other places, about the visibility of drug use since drugs were recriminalized?
Botkin: In talking to officers in Hillsboro, they will tell you that if you look at parts of, say, downtown Hillsboro now compared to before the law was passed, there’s much less open drug use than there used to be. So it’s becoming harder to immediately spot people engaging in use compared to, say, a year ago. So there has been some visible change to what the landscape looks like.
Of course, the big question now is how much of it is simply the fact that drug use has gone to places where it’s no longer visible, versus how much of its people no longer engage in those substances.
Miller: I don’t know how you would disentangle those. One way I suppose, and we may just have to wait for the data, is if there’s a drop in overdoses, fatal or otherwise, that goes along with this. That would seem to show that fewer people are using fentanyl, say. But without that kind of data, is it just impossible to know if drug use has just gone behind closed doors?
Botkin: Yes, it’s very difficult to disentangle those. And it’s very early in the process to really know what kind of an impact deflection is going to have in the long run. You have that issue of public versus private use. You also have the issue, too, of how many people are going to need to return for deflection. I guess the way to look at it is deflection is not simply a single journey for every person from point A to point B. Different people have different challenges. Some have relapses more than others. So it’s definitely a very personalized, unique journey for each individual.
Miller: I was intrigued to find out that one of the people you talked to for your reporting is a mid-level drug dealer. And just to be clear, this is something she’s doing now, what she continues to do, has always been illegal. She’s dealing with a small number of pounds of drugs at any given time, which is well above the decriminalized limit that’s not even in place anymore. But I’m curious what you feel like you learned in talking to her?
Botkin: I think I learned, from talking to her is they really view these government programs as simply another chapter of the war on drugs which continues in America. There’s a very cavalier attitude among dealers, such as that person, who really have no fear that anything’s going to change for their own business, for their own economic situation.
Miller: So recriminalizing smaller amounts of drugs and possession of those hasn’t changed anything for her?
Botkin: No. In her case, her clients, if you were to use that word, use drugs in homes behind closed doors. So she views it as there’s this market, a very large market, of people who use drugs in private, who police will never interact with, who police are very unlikely to come across.
Miller: Finally, we’ve been focusing on examples of the 28 counties in Oregon that now have deflection programs set up. But what’s happening in the other eight?
Botkin: Just to be clear, in the other eight, court-order diversion is still an option. The other eight, they’re primarily rural counties who really looked at the money the legislature was providing and their own resources and decided, “Hey, this $150,000 that you’re giving, it’s not enough to really start a new program.” So whether it’s a county that hasn’t started deflection or even one that’s continuing, there are really long term concerns about will this will be a sustainable program, will the funding be enough to really set up something that has long lasting results?
Miller: Ben, thanks very much.
Botkin: Thank you.
Miller: That is Ben Botkin, who now works as a Politics and Policy correspondent for Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
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