I wrote a piece about Measure 110, having seen many of the consequences in our district as a Police Chaplain. Obviously, the Joint Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response had already decided which way it wanted to go by silencing dissent and amplifying their own echoes.
In case anyone's interested in reading my take on this profound error:
I've always liked that quote. But if I were a "white-elected" official in Boston, I would show up at that party in blackface. What's the point in having a party if you can't get down and really party.
Does anyone else notice how Harm Reduction non profits refer to people who use their services as “Folks”? This verbiage makes the people who receive funding from measure 110 to hand out tourniquets..needles..bootie bumps and who knows what else to somehow seem safe and benign..like they truly care about the addicts they are literally killing by continuing to enable their drug habits. These harm reduction people care about the money they get paid to continue this B.S….it’s a racket
Yes, the pro-drug, pro-crime side has mastered semantics. For example, “drug abuse” has evolved into “drug use.” See how it works? Whether it’s aspirin, heroin or fentanyl — it’s all drug use, and we’re all drug users. Nobody abuses drugs anymore.
One of the slickest semantic maneuvers was when a prison rights group called Western Prison Project changed its name to Partnership for Safety & Justice. Members of the group are routinely quoted by the media (especially OPB and The Oregonian) as experts on crime and social justice. Their history and motivation are rarely noted.
Former House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland), an attorney, was involved with PSJ for years and carried progressive legislation for them that eased the lives of criminal offenders. She later left the state House to run for Secretary of State. Were it not for Nigel Jaquiss at Willamette Week she could have easily been elected. He discovered she was spending campaign money on questionable purchases. She quickly dropped out of the race and was replaced by Shamia Fagan.
At this hearing on Measure 110, PSJ’s executive director Andy Ko testified in favor of it using words like “accountability, equity and healing,” which no longer have any meaning.
He warned opponents, “Any claim that the war on drugs never happened would be akin to saying slavery never happened. … Measure 110 does not need to be fixed. It just needs to be implemented.”
I didn’t hear anyone at the hearing say the war on drugs never happened. It happened. The drug dealers won.
It has taken them years to get to this point. Probably 25+ years.
So fighting against this now status quo sickness, will not be done overnight.
And we need to find people to run for office (any office, from school board to state legislature) who are not afraid of The Machine and give them a ton of support.
Anyone that has cruised around Portland, or for that matter most other cities in Oregon can't believe that measure 110 is anything other than a dismal and tragic failure. Further anyone with more than a passing knowledge of junkies/addition has to know sanctions ie incarceration work to eventually force addicts to treatment or at least a break. I look at these non-profit shills much like drug dealers a lot more interested in their cash flow than consequences
Dec 5, 2023·edited Dec 6, 2023Liked by Pamela Fitzsimmons
The leaders of the opposition to M110 urgently need to get ahead of the activists on the other side by agreeing on a detailed proposal on how to deal humanely with people found to be in possession of drugs in the event the decriminalization provisions of the measure are repealed.
The longer M110's opponents go without formulating a such a plan, the more time the defenders of the untenable status quo will have to define it for them in the most alarmist and prejudicial terms possible. The catastrophizing by opponents of recriminalization is already in full swing, as proven by their rhetoric at the hearing.
They want the liberal segment of the public and the progressive Democratic legislators in whose hands rests the fate of M110 to associate repeal or reform with downtrodden users detoxing in misery on the cold and filthy floors of jail cells. As far as activists are concerned, any tampering with the measure will result in an unprecedented wave of arrests and, yes, handcuffing, leading to prosecution and incarceration. It is cruel even to require addicts to obtain treatment, as OregonLive/The Oregonian reported recently:
"Shannon Isadore Jones, CEO of Oregon Change Clinic, a treatment provider in Portland, pushed back on requiring people to seek treatment. She predicted the approach would backfire."
" 'A better solution is to dramatically increase our street services and outreach where there can be adequate care available for everyone,' she said. 'Slapping handcuffs on people who aren’t ready, that are already in trauma, hauling them away, as some people are proposing, would be cruel.' " [1]
At the same time, those who have taken on the task of ridding Oregon of the rotting albatross that is Measure 110 need to devise a communication strategy to push back against the measure's supporters in near real time. Anyone familiar with the state's leading newspaper would know that its reporters almost never publish rebuttals within their stories to a source's false or disingenuous statements in the same story, of which the foregoing paragraph is an excellent example. For that reason, they need to take it upon themselves to rebut it by any and all available channels.
If those who most want to end M110 don't point out that Ms. Jones is basically asking for yet more tax dollars to continue enabling addicts living on the streets by providing "care" that does not cure, who will? Who is going to explain to Oregonians that the "trauma" activists are always so alarmed about on behalf of the homeless and addicts results primarily from the wretched conditions the activists want to perpetuate? Who is going to add up the number of Narcan resurrections in this state this year in order to put paid to Ms. Jones's claim that given enough "street outreach and services" addicts will eventually become "ready" for rehab?
I’m gonna stand by the old adage as long as the legislature is in session no one is safe. The criminals in Salem are a bigger problem than the homeless.
The story we aren’t getting from Portland’s so-called “legacy media.” I can’t wait to read OPB’s twisted version of this Potempkin Village!
The irony about Godvin is that she was - appropriately- targeted, prosecuted, and convicted under a still vibrant federal law known as the “Len Bias law,” after the promising young basketball player died of a tainted overdose. You really have to work at to get this much attention from the Feds and it’s very unlikely Congress will back off the laws that sent Godvin to federal prison for a few years. It is a form of homicide, not much different than killing someone while driving drunk.
What is appalling is how staged this “invitation only” hearing was, particularly in light of objective polling showing two thirds of Oregonians would now vote against Measure 110’s uniquely catastrophic functional legalization of all drugs. Literally no other place in the world has been this dumb, and certainly those who like to think Oregon leads the way, only lead it into epic levels of overdose and death.
I submitted my written testimony advocating for overhaul or repeal of Measure 110 to the committee early yesterday morning and it does not show on the record in OLIS.
Morgan Godvin, the federally convicted drug dealer who caused the death of another by the drugs she provided, was appointed to the Oregon Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission in 2020 by then Gov Kate Brown. How the heck did that happen??!!
Future Portland put links to both the hearing and the place to leave written testimony for the legislators. I forwarded the link to several friends who said they commented, and I left a statement based on my "lived experience" in Portland, to counteract the Social Justice Warrior party line. We do what we can do.
Google the Prepare for Change Newsletter and read about cannabis and what is really happening. Drugs and human trafficking are the way the US gets its money! The war on drugs is really a surrender which each and every drug user eventually faces. It is all a slippery slope and humans are being pushed!
Great article! Thank you! These "leaders" just like to take their sweet time, sit around, schmooze and drink coffee, rather than actually get anything accomplished. I just found out the tickets to Mikey and Chesa at OMSI are $20 a pop. Laughable. Some girlfriends of mine want to go there and raise Hell, and picket outside the OMSI, with posters and placards, reading "GO HOME CHESA!" and "GO HOME MIKEY!" LOL...
These druggies just cannot kill themselves soon enough. And this is the argument from Salem. At what point have I stopped caring? A high schooler who dies who is looking to experiment? Someone on the street who looks far older than their years? Someone who meets up with law enforcement for more aggressive behaviours that are the result of drug use? Am I supposed to carry Narcan with me wherever I go? Get this poison off the streets so those on the innocent end of the scale are protected.
I wrote a piece about Measure 110, having seen many of the consequences in our district as a Police Chaplain. Obviously, the Joint Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response had already decided which way it wanted to go by silencing dissent and amplifying their own echoes.
In case anyone's interested in reading my take on this profound error:
https://pastormike.substack.com/p/stupid-is-as-stupid-votes
Just throwing this out as it captures so perfectly the state of play:
https://pjmedia.com/miltharris/2023/12/13/boston-mayor-has-christmas-party-for-electeds-of-color-only-n4924727
The mayor of Boston sounds as racist as the editor of The Oregonian. What are these women so afraid of?
'I could never belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member." Groucho Marx
I've always liked that quote. But if I were a "white-elected" official in Boston, I would show up at that party in blackface. What's the point in having a party if you can't get down and really party.
Does anyone else notice how Harm Reduction non profits refer to people who use their services as “Folks”? This verbiage makes the people who receive funding from measure 110 to hand out tourniquets..needles..bootie bumps and who knows what else to somehow seem safe and benign..like they truly care about the addicts they are literally killing by continuing to enable their drug habits. These harm reduction people care about the money they get paid to continue this B.S….it’s a racket
Yes, the pro-drug, pro-crime side has mastered semantics. For example, “drug abuse” has evolved into “drug use.” See how it works? Whether it’s aspirin, heroin or fentanyl — it’s all drug use, and we’re all drug users. Nobody abuses drugs anymore.
One of the slickest semantic maneuvers was when a prison rights group called Western Prison Project changed its name to Partnership for Safety & Justice. Members of the group are routinely quoted by the media (especially OPB and The Oregonian) as experts on crime and social justice. Their history and motivation are rarely noted.
Former House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland), an attorney, was involved with PSJ for years and carried progressive legislation for them that eased the lives of criminal offenders. She later left the state House to run for Secretary of State. Were it not for Nigel Jaquiss at Willamette Week she could have easily been elected. He discovered she was spending campaign money on questionable purchases. She quickly dropped out of the race and was replaced by Shamia Fagan.
At this hearing on Measure 110, PSJ’s executive director Andy Ko testified in favor of it using words like “accountability, equity and healing,” which no longer have any meaning.
He warned opponents, “Any claim that the war on drugs never happened would be akin to saying slavery never happened. … Measure 110 does not need to be fixed. It just needs to be implemented.”
I didn’t hear anyone at the hearing say the war on drugs never happened. It happened. The drug dealers won.
It has taken them years to get to this point. Probably 25+ years.
So fighting against this now status quo sickness, will not be done overnight.
And we need to find people to run for office (any office, from school board to state legislature) who are not afraid of The Machine and give them a ton of support.
Short version: Oregon's political class advises the remaining taxpayers to suck it up.
Anyone that has cruised around Portland, or for that matter most other cities in Oregon can't believe that measure 110 is anything other than a dismal and tragic failure. Further anyone with more than a passing knowledge of junkies/addition has to know sanctions ie incarceration work to eventually force addicts to treatment or at least a break. I look at these non-profit shills much like drug dealers a lot more interested in their cash flow than consequences
The leaders of the opposition to M110 urgently need to get ahead of the activists on the other side by agreeing on a detailed proposal on how to deal humanely with people found to be in possession of drugs in the event the decriminalization provisions of the measure are repealed.
The longer M110's opponents go without formulating a such a plan, the more time the defenders of the untenable status quo will have to define it for them in the most alarmist and prejudicial terms possible. The catastrophizing by opponents of recriminalization is already in full swing, as proven by their rhetoric at the hearing.
They want the liberal segment of the public and the progressive Democratic legislators in whose hands rests the fate of M110 to associate repeal or reform with downtrodden users detoxing in misery on the cold and filthy floors of jail cells. As far as activists are concerned, any tampering with the measure will result in an unprecedented wave of arrests and, yes, handcuffing, leading to prosecution and incarceration. It is cruel even to require addicts to obtain treatment, as OregonLive/The Oregonian reported recently:
"Shannon Isadore Jones, CEO of Oregon Change Clinic, a treatment provider in Portland, pushed back on requiring people to seek treatment. She predicted the approach would backfire."
" 'A better solution is to dramatically increase our street services and outreach where there can be adequate care available for everyone,' she said. 'Slapping handcuffs on people who aren’t ready, that are already in trauma, hauling them away, as some people are proposing, would be cruel.' " [1]
At the same time, those who have taken on the task of ridding Oregon of the rotting albatross that is Measure 110 need to devise a communication strategy to push back against the measure's supporters in near real time. Anyone familiar with the state's leading newspaper would know that its reporters almost never publish rebuttals within their stories to a source's false or disingenuous statements in the same story, of which the foregoing paragraph is an excellent example. For that reason, they need to take it upon themselves to rebut it by any and all available channels.
If those who most want to end M110 don't point out that Ms. Jones is basically asking for yet more tax dollars to continue enabling addicts living on the streets by providing "care" that does not cure, who will? Who is going to explain to Oregonians that the "trauma" activists are always so alarmed about on behalf of the homeless and addicts results primarily from the wretched conditions the activists want to perpetuate? Who is going to add up the number of Narcan resurrections in this state this year in order to put paid to Ms. Jones's claim that given enough "street outreach and services" addicts will eventually become "ready" for rehab?
[1] "Debate over Measure 110’s future heats up as lawmakers mull reforms." 4 December 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2023/12/debate-over-measure-110s-future-heats-up-as-lawmakers-mull-reforms.html
I’m gonna stand by the old adage as long as the legislature is in session no one is safe. The criminals in Salem are a bigger problem than the homeless.
You should file a public records request, see who's getting money and who isn't.
The story we aren’t getting from Portland’s so-called “legacy media.” I can’t wait to read OPB’s twisted version of this Potempkin Village!
The irony about Godvin is that she was - appropriately- targeted, prosecuted, and convicted under a still vibrant federal law known as the “Len Bias law,” after the promising young basketball player died of a tainted overdose. You really have to work at to get this much attention from the Feds and it’s very unlikely Congress will back off the laws that sent Godvin to federal prison for a few years. It is a form of homicide, not much different than killing someone while driving drunk.
What is appalling is how staged this “invitation only” hearing was, particularly in light of objective polling showing two thirds of Oregonians would now vote against Measure 110’s uniquely catastrophic functional legalization of all drugs. Literally no other place in the world has been this dumb, and certainly those who like to think Oregon leads the way, only lead it into epic levels of overdose and death.
I submitted my written testimony advocating for overhaul or repeal of Measure 110 to the committee early yesterday morning and it does not show on the record in OLIS.
It’s in their circular file.
Morgan Godvin, the federally convicted drug dealer who caused the death of another by the drugs she provided, was appointed to the Oregon Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission in 2020 by then Gov Kate Brown. How the heck did that happen??!!
Kate Brown suffers from a crippling case of white liberal guilt, making her an easy mark for every equity huckster in the state of Oregon and beyond.
Future Portland put links to both the hearing and the place to leave written testimony for the legislators. I forwarded the link to several friends who said they commented, and I left a statement based on my "lived experience" in Portland, to counteract the Social Justice Warrior party line. We do what we can do.
Google the Prepare for Change Newsletter and read about cannabis and what is really happening. Drugs and human trafficking are the way the US gets its money! The war on drugs is really a surrender which each and every drug user eventually faces. It is all a slippery slope and humans are being pushed!
Fuck these mentally ill assholes! It goes to show you can destroy your mind with just thoughts- no hard drugs needed.
Great article! Thank you! These "leaders" just like to take their sweet time, sit around, schmooze and drink coffee, rather than actually get anything accomplished. I just found out the tickets to Mikey and Chesa at OMSI are $20 a pop. Laughable. Some girlfriends of mine want to go there and raise Hell, and picket outside the OMSI, with posters and placards, reading "GO HOME CHESA!" and "GO HOME MIKEY!" LOL...
If you want to get in free, just say you were formerly incarcerated. Seriously. The event is free for people formerly incarcerated.
Gakk. These morons make me sick to my stomach. Can't wait until Nathan Vasquez mops the FLOOR with Mikey Boy.
These druggies just cannot kill themselves soon enough. And this is the argument from Salem. At what point have I stopped caring? A high schooler who dies who is looking to experiment? Someone on the street who looks far older than their years? Someone who meets up with law enforcement for more aggressive behaviours that are the result of drug use? Am I supposed to carry Narcan with me wherever I go? Get this poison off the streets so those on the innocent end of the scale are protected.