Today, Oregon lawmakers are holding what is likely to be the only public hearing on House Bill (HB) 4002, which would employ war on drugs tactics to recriminalize addiction.

At the Portland City Council Meeting on January 31, 2024, Commissioner Rene Gonzalez made statements indicating he supports the Portland Police Bureau’s use of unlawful surveillance in 2020, which infringed upon the rights of everyday people who protested for racial justice.

Today the Joint Interim Committee on Addiction and Community Safety announced that they plan to reverse the state’s public health approach to addiction and impose a criminal penalty for people not able to access treatment. The ACLU-OR and Oregonians for Safety and Recovery released this statement.

Recriminalization will harm people – especially Black, brown, and poor people – and make drug addiction and homelessness more difficult and expensive to solve.

Complaint alleges that the so-called “Fix and Improve Measure 110” campaign disregarded Oregon campaign finance law requirements over several months.

Oregon needs immediate action to the addiction crisis. This means continuing to invest in a holistic, healthcare-based approach to address the root causes of the addiction crisis. The solution cannot include going backwards to failed drug war policies.

ACLU-OR and Parents Defending Schools and Libraries sent a joint public records request to the Canby School District, seeking information regarding their recent history of reconsidering and restricting access to select book titles, primarily written by LGBTQ+ people and Black and Latina women.

The ACLU of Oregon (ACLU-OR) joined National ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Lewis & Clark Law School Criminal Justice Reform Clinic in filing an amicus brief urging the Oregon Supreme Court to allow overloaded public defenders to withdraw from cases when overloaded.

ACLU Applauds Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s Marijuana Pardons, Calls on Other Governors to Follow