Latest news with #CharlesFainLehman
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Wall Street Journal
Drugs Ruined My Hometown
Having lived in Portland for the past 50 years, I can attest to the damage drug decriminalization has done to the fabric of our community ('This Is the Pacific Northwest on Drugs' by Charles Fain Lehman, op-ed, Aug. 7). I used to frequent Powell's Bookstore, a local landmark, at least monthly. On a visit last December, four homeless vagrants smoking fentanyl on my SUV's back bumper nearly prevented me from entering the car. It was a vivid reminder to avoid going downtown.
Wall Street Journal
7 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
What Spiked Crime in the Pacific Northwest?
Charles Fain Lehman flouts the basic rule that correlation isn't causation by linking short-lived drug decriminalization in Oregon and Washington to rising violent crime ('This Is the Pacific Northwest on Drugs,' op-ed, Aug. 7). But there's no plausible reason that people who use drugs nonviolently would suddenly turn violent simply because they're no longer jailed for possession. Even the study Mr. Lehman cites doesn't blame drug use itself. Its authors suggest other causes: weakening social cohesion, failure to jail chronic offenders and broader 'de-policing.' None point to drug use as the driver. Portugal's drug decriminalization in 2001 didn't cause an increase in crime; nor did the Czech Republic's nine years later. Mr. Lehman also blames the rise in overdoses on decriminalization. Yet a recent study from Brown University and RTI International researchers finds no link between Oregon's Measure 110 and the state's rise in overdose deaths. The authors accounted for fentanyl's arrival, which moved east to west and hit the Pacific Northwest around 2019-20, causing the same overdose spike seen elsewhere. Once fentanyl was factored in, the association between decriminalization and overdose deaths disappeared. The real driver was the shifting drug supply.
