It has long been said that the United States is losing the war on drugs.

Here we are with laws that prohibit drugs, but they are just as rampant as ever. We’re dealing with an ongoing opioid crisis as well as facing growing threats thanks to the Biden administration.

What I mean by that is with all of the people pouring in across the border, the amount of fentanyl has also increased. That stuff is extremely deadly. I honestly don’t even understand why anyone would be willing to do drugs that contain or could contain it.

Call it a conspiracy theory, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe the government got in on it and since they can’t stop the drugs, they are going to stop the people who do the drugs, therefore there is no more demand for it. I highly doubt that this is the case, but it was a thought that I had nonetheless.

Because we’re losing the war on drugs, many have said that we should just legalize them. Afterall, look at states and centers like Embrace Treatment Center that have legalized marijuana. Aren’t they doing just fine? Well, that depends on who you ask and in reality, there is a major difference between marijuana and hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

But what you may not be aware of is that Oregon actually decriminalized hard drugs not too long ago. So what have been the results do the measure? Did crime go down? Did drug use go down? Not a chance. In 2019, before the law went into effect, there were a total of 280 drug overdoses in Oregon. Jump forward to 2021 and what we saw was 607 drug overdoses amounting to a 216% increase!

Is this because of the bill alone? Sadly, it’s difficult to say because of the pandemic and everything that came out of it. However, Oregon’s Secretary of State stated the reason why they passed the law to decriminalize hard drugs:

“When the voters of Oregon passed Measure 110, we did so because it was a change of policy in Oregon to improve the lives of people, to improve our communities, and in the years since, we haven’t seen that play out. Instead, in many communities in Oregon, we’ve seen the problem with drug addiction get worse,” Fagan said.

I’d say that it was a massive failure, but that’s what you get for being stupid.