Hard hit by the US opioid crisis, Oregon reconsiders decriminalization

It's a common sight on the streets of downtown Portland, Oregon: people in front of stores, trendy restaurants and hotels, on sidewalks, corners, and benches, crouched over torch lighters held up to sheets of tinfoil or meth pipes.

Some drape blankets over their heads, or duck behind concrete barriers. Others don’t try to hide.

"All summer long, we were right out in the open. You didn't have to be paranoid anymore, you didn't have to be worried about the cops," said John Hood, a 61-year-old drug addict living on the streets of Oregon’s most populous city.

Hood spoke to Reuters on a downtown Portland corner, across from where he had just smoked fentanyl and methamphetamine outside an old bus station-turned homeless shelter.

"It was like smoking cigarettes. You just did it, and you didn’t have to worry about it. Now they’re cracking back down. They’re wanting to make it illegal."

Oregonians in 2020 passed a ballot measure, opens new tab that created the most liberal drug law in the country, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in cannabis taxes to addiction recovery services.