The Oregon legislature passed a bill last week undoing punitive drug laws in favor of expanding access to drug treatment, according to The Washington Post.
If the bill is signed into law, first-time offenders arrested with small amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illegal drugs will face less jail time. Additionally, arrestees without prior felonies would be granted increased access to addiction treatment. If approved, Oregon would join the ranks of states like California, Colorado and Delaware, which have similar decriminalization laws in place.
"We are trying to move policy towards treatment rather than prison beds," said Republican state Sen. Jackie Winters, co-chair of the senate committee on public safety and a supporter of the bill, according to the Post. "We can't continue on the path of building more prisons when often the underlying root cause of the crime is substance use."
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