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Oregon lawmakers pass bill to recriminalize hard drugs after overdose deaths soared 190% and Dem-led Portland was forced to declare state of emergency over fentanyl crisis

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Oregon lawmakers pass bill to recriminalize hard drugs after overdose deaths soared 190% and Dem-led Portland was forced to declare state of emergency over fentanyl crisis


Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to recriminalize possession of drugs weeks after Gov. Tina Kotek declared state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis in Portland. 

A bill recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs was passed by the Oregon Legislature on Friday.

The bill reverses a key part of the state’s drug decriminalization law, which was the first of its kind in the U.S.

Efforts from lawmakers come as governments struggle to respond to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history.

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Oregon has seen a 190 percent increase in overdose deaths since the initial decriminalization bill went into effect in February 2021, according to the CDC. 

Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to recriminalize possession of drugs weeks after Gov. Tina Kotek declared state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis in Portland

A bill recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs was passed by the Oregon Legislature on Friday (pictured: A person pushes a cart along Southwest 3rd Avenue in Portland)

A bill recriminalizing the possession of small amounts of drugs was passed by the Oregon Legislature on Friday (pictured: A person pushes a cart along Southwest 3rd Avenue in Portland)

The new bill reverses a key part of the state's drug decriminalization law, which was the first of its kind in the U.S. (Pictured: A man holding a glass pipe and two lighters struggles to wrestle a piece of candy from a wrapper while sitting on a bench in downtown Portland)

The new bill reverses a key part of the state’s drug decriminalization law, which was the first of its kind in the U.S. (Pictured: A man holding a glass pipe and two lighters struggles to wrestle a piece of candy from a wrapper while sitting on a bench in downtown Portland)

Oregon has seen a 190 percent increase in overdose deaths since the initial decriminalization bill went into effect in February 2021

Oregon has seen a 190 percent increase in overdose deaths since the initial decriminalization bill went into effect in February 2021

Gov. Tina Kotek said in January that she is open to signing a bill that would roll back decriminalization

Gov. Tina Kotek said in January that she is open to signing a bill that would roll back decriminalization

In the 12 months leading up to February 2021, there were 861 overdose deaths in Oregon; that number increased to 1,650 deaths in the same 12-month period ending in September 2023.

When Oregon voters approved the landmark plan to decriminalize hard drugs three years ago, they thought that putting an end to the jailing of drug users would do good for the state and potentially spread throughout the country. 

However overdoses soared as the state struggled to fund the enhanced treatment centers at the core of the decriminalization plan. 

The pandemic further hurt Portland’s downtown, causing the streets to become an open-air drug market. 

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Now, even liberal politicians – like Oregon’s Democrat Governor Tina Kotek – are ready to end the experiment before the drug crisis blows any further out of control. 

The state Senate approved the new bill, House Bill 4002, in a 21-8 vote after the House passed it 51-7 on Thursday.

The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Tina Kotek, who said in January that she is open to signing a bill that would roll back decriminalization.

Oregon’s Democratic Governor declared a state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis in Portland at the end of January. 

‘With this bill, we are doubling down on our commitment to make sure Oregonians have access to the treatment and care that they need,’ said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, of Portland, one of the bill’s authors.

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She added that its passage will ‘be the start of real and transformative change for our justice system.’ 

Efforts from lawmakers come as governments struggle to respond to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history

Efforts from lawmakers come as governments struggle to respond to the deadliest overdose crisis in U.S. history

Oregon has seen a 210 per cent increase in fentanyl -related deaths since the initial decriminalization bill was passed in November 2020  (Pictured: Officer Donny Mathew of the Portland Police Bureau's bike squad, stands next to a person who appears to be passed out)

Oregon has seen a 210 per cent increase in fentanyl -related deaths since the initial decriminalization bill was passed in November 2020  (Pictured: Officer Donny Mathew of the Portland Police Bureau’s bike squad, stands next to a person who appears to be passed out)

The measure makes the possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail. 

It enables police to confiscate the drugs and crack down on their use on sidewalks and in parks. Drug treatment is to be offered as an alternative to criminal penalties. 

The bill also aims to make it easier to prosecute people who sell drugs. It increases access to addiction medication, and to obtain and keep housing without facing discrimination for using that medication. 

Kotek, along with her colleagues Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, made the state of emergency declaration last month.

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They directed their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.

In the 90 days following the declaration, Fentanyl addicts who interacted with first responders in Portland’s downtown were triaged by the new command center. 

Oregon's Democratic Governor declared a state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis at the end of January

Oregon’s Democratic Governor declared a state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis at the end of January

The measure makes the possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail (pictured: Police officer David Baer pulls a man, who was caught smoking fentanyl)

The measure makes the possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail (pictured: Police officer David Baer pulls a man, who was caught smoking fentanyl)

The bill also aims to make it easier to prosecute people who sell drugs. It increases access to addiction medication, and to obtain and keep housing without facing discrimination for using that medication

The bill also aims to make it easier to prosecute people who sell drugs. It increases access to addiction medication, and to obtain and keep housing without facing discrimination for using that medication

Staff in the center can connect addicts with various resources from a bed in a drug treatment center to meeting with a behavioral health clinician to help with registering for food stamps.

‘Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,’ Kotek said.

The declaration is a recommendation from a governor-established task force that met for several months last year to determine ways to rejuvenate downtown Portland.

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Sanctuary state Oregon rolls out program to help illegal migrants thwart ICE: ‘Do not open the door’

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Sanctuary state Oregon rolls out program to help illegal migrants thwart ICE: ‘Do not open the door’


The lefty attorney general of Oregon has rolled out a new program to help illegal migrants in the sanctuary state thwart ICE ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations.

Ellen Rosenblum’s recent new guide, titled the “Sanctuary Promise Community Toolkit,” offers advice to illegal immigrants on what to say and do if ICE or other immigration authorities show up.

For the question, “How do I prepare myself and my family for encounters with ICE?” the answer includes legal guidance from the American Civil Liberties Union: “do not open the door, ask to see a warrant signed by a judge, tell them you do not consent to them being at your home and tell them please leave.”

Incoming border czar Tom Homan speaks to Texas law enforcement deployed to the southern border. The Washington Post via Getty Images

In answer to the question, “Is there a place I can call to report ICE or other federal immigration authorities active right now in my community?” the Oregon Department of Justice lists contact information for local nonprofits that work to warn migrants about federal operations.

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There are also multiple sections on how to report anyone who is suspected of violating Oregon’s sanctuary law and working with federal immigration authorities.

One section advises locals that they can sue any state or local agency that they suspect of violating sanctuary law.

However, the “Sanctuary Promise” guide admits that state laws can only do so much: “The outcome of a state investigation or a private civil suit does not change a deportation order, or any other decision/action by the federal courts or federal immigration authority to prosecute or remove a person from the United States.”

“Every person has the right to live, work, play, and learn safely in Oregon, period,” said Rosenblum in a statement. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

“Every person has the right to live, work, play, and learn safely in Oregon, period,” said Rosenblum when her office released the anti-ICE info.

“I asked my Civil Rights Unit here at the Oregon DOJ to do whatever we could to provide the people, businesses, and local governments of our state with easy-to-read materials to help them know their rights and educate others, and I’m so pleased with what they’ve put together,” she added.

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A woman holds a sign that reads “ICE stop hunting people” against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Getty Images

The Beaver State’s top cop said she recommends illegal migrants begin talking with family members to better “understand what protections Oregon’s sanctuary laws provide and what they do not provide, and make a plan for what to do if immigration officials come to your home or place of business.”

“Knowing your rights in advance is essential!” added Rosenblum.

Oregon became the nation’s first sanctuary state in 1987. And in recent years, the state has taken steps to enhance its crackdown on those who violate its sanctuary laws, including with the passage of the Sanctuary Promise Act in 2021 which opened a hotline for residents to report violators.

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan recently The Post that the once and future president may increase the pressure on sanctuary leaders’ efforts to thwart ICE as it works to lock up and deport illegal migrant criminals.

“I’m hoping the president files a lawsuit against them and withholds federal funding,” said Homan.

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However, if that doesn’t work, “then we’ll wait til they get out of jail, then we’ll go out into the neighborhoods and get them,” said Homan.

He added: “If they’re not willing to do it then get out of the way — we’re coming.”



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A Tale of Two Trails: Sharing Indigenous stories from eastern Oregon

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A Tale of Two Trails: Sharing Indigenous stories from eastern Oregon


BAKER CITY — Coyote, the storyteller, has taken up residence at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City. And he’s using his voice to share a side of history sometimes forgotten.

The 23,000 square-foot facility, operated by the Bureau of Land Management, opened a new Native American exhibit at the end of October.

The displays include a gallery dedicated to the history, culture and languages of the tribes who have inhabited the land along the Oregon Trail for thousands of generations prior to the mass European American migration that began in the early 1840s.

In the language of the Umatilla Tribe, Coyote’s name is spilyáy. His role at the center is to teach visitors the Oregon Trail story from the Native American perspective.

“Great change is coming!” spilyáy proclaims in colorful signs along the center’s main gallery, lined with life-sized dioramas of settler men, women and children, covered wagons, oxen, sheep, horses, Native American men and a howling coyote.

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“I see the storm of your future,” he warns. “The ŝuyápuma (European Americans) will come in greater numbers than in any season past. Their need will be unquenchable. Their wagons bring wonders and comforts, but their ways are not your ways; their friendship brings pain. They are wildfire, consuming the land and all I have prepared.

“Are you listening?”

Coyote’s narrative adds to numerous Native American exhibits already woven throughout the center, including a diorama depicting the importance of trade among settlers and Native Americans, and a display describing contact and confrontation on the frontier, often a result of cultural differences, lack of communication and government inaction.

Baker City resident John Bearinside was one of the first visitors to see the new exhibit at the Interpretive Center and related the plight of the Umatilla, Cayuse, Walla Walla and Nez Perce —who were moved to reservations through the Treaty of 1855 — to that of his own ancestors.

A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and Apache, Bearinside grew up on the Choctaw Reservation. His great-great-great grandparents were removed from their homeland in Mississippi and forced to relocate to a reservation in Oklahoma.

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Bearinside, who speaks on Native American culture and history, emphasized that not all written accounts of Native American history are accurate.

“It’s amazing to me how much transpired, but it’s not put into books technically, it’s put into books not realistically, it’s put into books in a way to sell the books—bigger than life,” he explained.

“My grandmother would tell us, ‘Read between the lines, of your history books, of your newspapers, your stories, your wanted posters. You know, when they say he murdered 25 people, he might have murdered two people,’” Bearinside said.

“If a person has a real serious interest and we feel that we can trust them, only then can we tell them our stories.”

The stories of many diverse groups of people whose lives were forever altered by the Oregon Trail are told through photos, films, artifacts and quotations at the Interpretive Center.

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The idea for an Oregon Trail museum began as part of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s “Oregon Comeback” plan following the 1980s recession, said Dave Hunsaker, the Interpretive Center’s original project manager and its first director.

Planning was tied in with construction of several other cultural centers: The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute on the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton and the Four Rivers Cultural Center and Museum in Ontario. Each of those centers focused on the way the Oregon Trail affected their region, Hunsaker noted.

“We’re the one that really focused broadly on the Oregon Trail itself,” he said.

The Baker City facility was the first to open, in May 1992, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation blessed the building at its grand opening. The original plan focused on six themes, Hunsaker said, one of which was Native Americans, with the goal of expanding that theme later, after Tamástslikt was up and running.

The seed for developing the new Native American exhibit was planted in 2015, said Bobby Reis, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Interpretive Center, but development was delayed due to renovation work and COVID-19. Bobbie Conner, director of Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, was involved in the early planning stages. Tamástslikt opened in 1998 and is the only Native American museum directly on the Oregon Trail, focusing in detail how settlers’ arrival caused diseases, wars, broken treaties and attempts at assimilation, including boarding schools.

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The new displays at the Interpretive Center are a permanent addition and are viewable year-round.

Read more: Tamástslikt museum shows Oregon history through a Native American lens

The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center’s winter hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday; 22267 Hwy. 86, Baker City; free admission in December; Jan. 2-March 31, $5 for 16 and older, $4 for seniors, good for two days with receipt; blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/national-historic-oregon-trail-interpretive-center

Another exhibit making the rounds through Oregon highlights the history and resilience of the Wallowa Band Nez Perce, or nimiipuu.

Titled “Nez Perce in Oregon: Removal and Return,” the traveling exhibit was created by the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph through a grant from the Oregon State Capitol Foundation, said Rich Wandschneider, director of the Josephy Library of Western History and Culture and a Wallowa County historian. Currently on display at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, the exhibit will move in mid-January to Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton before finding a home at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem next September.

Wandschneider consulted with Nez Perce tribal elders in developing displays that interpret the history of the Wallowa Band Nez Perce and how the lives of its people, who had lived in the Wallowa Valley from time immemorial, were changed irrevocably by the arrival of European American explorers, fur traders, missionaries, gold miners and settlers.

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The exhibit discusses settlement and conflict in the Wallowa Valley, starting with the wave of Oregon Trail settlers who edged ever-nearer to Nez Perce territory in the 1860s. Old Chief Joseph constructed stone monuments to keep them out, but after his death in 1871, settlers began flooding in. Although the Nez Perce were friendly toward the newcomers, tensions grew between them.

As the exhibit explains, treaties are part of “The supreme Law of the Land,” according to the U.S. Constitution. In 1877, Young Chief Joseph was forced to comply with the Nez Perce Treaty of 1863—although his father had refused to sign it—and lead his people out of the Wallowa Valley to a reservation in Lapwai, Idaho Territory.

On the way to Lapwai, overwhelming emotions sparked a young Nez Perce man, whose father had been murdered by a settler, to lead a deadly revenge attack on Idaho Territory settlers, and according to the exhibit, “the Nez Perce War was on.”

The fighting retreat sent some 800 Nez Perce people on a nearly 1,200-mile journey across four states, with the U.S. Army close behind. Just 40 miles from the Canadian border, with his people cold, exhausted and starving and most of his chiefs killed in some 13 battles and skirmishes, Chief Joseph surrendered. He and most of his tribe were exiled to Kansas and Oklahoma, and finally sent to the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, while Chief White Bird and 200 others escaped to Canada.

Charlie Moses, 88, who grew up on the Colville reservation in Nespelem, Wash., and now lives in Vancouver, has close ties to the Nez Perce War. His grandfather and great-grandfather both fought in the war, and his great-uncle was killed at the bloody Battle of the Big Hole.

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“My tribe really is the White Bird,” Moses said, “but after we came back from Oklahoma, my grandfather, Black Eagle, followed Joseph to Nespelem.”

Moses, who retired following a 30-year career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has spent much of his time speaking about his family lineage and history in the Nez Perce War, providing that information to the Josephy Center, which created the new exhibit. He’s been involved with the Wallowa Homeland Project since the 1990s and makes regular journeys to Wallowa County to participate in the Tamkaliks Celebration and the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo.

Chief Joseph remained an activist for his people until his death in 1904, and although never allowed to go back to his Wallowa Homeland, he made several trips to Washington, D.C., to plead for his people’s return. In 1879, he summarized his thoughts on the relationship between Native Americans and European Americans:

“Whenever the white man treats an Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall be alike—brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us and one country around us…that all people may be one people.”

“Nez Perce in Oregon: Removal and Return” is viewable 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday; Loso Hall, Eastern Oregon University; Sixth Street, La Grande; no admission fee. The exhibit will move to Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton in mid-January and to the Oregon State Capitol in Salem in September; library.josephy.org/the-nez-perce-in-oregon-removal-and-return

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— Kathy Patten, for The Oregonian/OregonLive



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Oregon State MBB Falls To Nebraska In Diamond Head Classic Championship

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Oregon State MBB Falls To Nebraska In Diamond Head Classic Championship


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HONOLULU — — Brice Williams scored 11 of his 25 points in the final six minutes and Nebraska closed on a 6-0 run to beat Oregon State 78-66 on Wednesday night in the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic.

Nebraska claimed its first tournament title since winning the San Juan Shootout in 2000 when the Cornhuskers won three games by a total of four points. Fred Hoiberg also became the first coach to win multiple Diamond Head Classic titles, including his Iowa State squad in 2013.

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After Oregon State tied it at 51-all with 10:20 to go, Nebraska used a 10-2 run to take control as the Beavers went five-plus minutes without a field goal. The Cornhuskers’ lead didn’t drop below four points the rest of the way.

Berke Buyuktuncel banked in a 3-pointer with 1:51 left to extend Nebraska’s lead to 72-63.

Buyuktuncel finished with 16 points and three 3-pointers, and Juwan Gary added 14 for Nebraska (10-2).

Nate Kingz scored 19 points and Damarco Minor added 16 for Oregon State (10-3).

Williams scored 10 points in the first half to help Nebraska take a 34-33 lead at the break. The Cornhuskers shot 50% from the field, including 6 of 11 from 3-point range in the first half.

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It was the second straight year Nebraska and Oregon State met at a neutral site, with last year’s game being played in South Dakota.

Nebraska returns home to play Southern on Monday, when Oregon State hosts Portland.

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MORE: TE Jackson Bowers Commits | Beavers Land Duke QB Maalik Murphy | Beavers Land UCF OL Keyon Cox | Beavers Land Nevada OL



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