If you choose to sow bad seed, don't complain about the harvest

 

Oregon is finding that out the hard way.

Overdose rates in the state of Oregon rose by 700% after voters in the state approved a ballot measure to decriminalize all hard drugs.

Voters in the state of Oregon voted to decriminalize all hard drugs in the pursuit of encouraging those struggling with drug addiction to seek medical help. The measure, referred to as Ballot Measure 110, was the first of its kind in the U.S. and went into effect in February of 2021 after being approved by the public the year before.

. . .

Steve Allen, Oregon’s behavioral health director, acknowledged that there has been a “dramatic” increase in overdoses and overdose deaths, but he attributed much of these to an influx of methamphetamine laced with fentanyl.

Allen indicated a belief that if public health resources received enough funding and support, then overdose deaths would decrease as the state’s drug problem begins to improve.

There's more at the link.

This is a textbook example of the non-fact-based, touchy-feely approach to government.

1. Ignore the hard reality of drug addiction and its health consequences.
2. Pass legislation that's politically correct and feeling-centered, "compassionate" rather than reality-based.
3. See the problem get worse and worse as a result.
4. Double down on the "touchy-feely" and demand more resources and funding, in a desperate (and doomed) effort to make the touchy-feely work in the face of reality.

The late President Ronald Reagan observed:

“If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.”

"Subsidizing it" may include more than just financial subsidies.  If you make it easier to do something, and de-stigmatize it, you'll get the same effect.  That's what Oregon chose to do:  and, since the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it's now seeing the inevitable result of its misguided policy.  In the same way, "taxing something" might involve not just lesser or no subsidies, but active measures against whatever it might be (laws, regulations, punishments, etc.).  Oregon - and many other states - had for a long time had minimal "taxation" of drug offenses in that sense;  therefore, their problems kept on increasing, leading to their latest "touchy-feely" effort (which was as doomed to failure as their earlier attempts to solve the problem).

You can't legislate human nature out of the equation.  Rudyard Kipling warned us about that.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

. . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Will Oregon learn from its mistake?  Under its present government, and with its present deluded liberal-progressive majority, I venture to doubt it.

Peter