Measure 110 backer seeks state resources to defend unpopular measure

An employee of pro-110 advocacy group urged state employees to rush public resources to defend the measure during two advisory committee meetings this summer

The Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a pro-Measure 110 advisory group, wants Oregon Health Authority to use public funds to help defend the unpopular measure.

Over the summer, as the public backlash intensified against Oregon’s hard drug decriminalization experiment initiated by 2020’s Ballot Measure 110, some well-placed Measure 110 supporters sought help from Oregon taxpayers to keep the measure afloat.

Ron Williams, Outreach Director for pro-110 advocacy group Health Justice Recovery Alliance, serves on the Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council (OAC), the 22-member committee that advises the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) on implementation of Measure 110, including funding decisions. Williams, at two consecutive OAC Media Subcommittee meetings over the summer, pushed OHA staff to use state resources to combat opposition to Measure 110 and to preserve it in its current form.

During the subcommittee’s July 19 meeting, Williams noted the growing effort to repeal or reform Measure 110:

We’re in a real fight right now in terms of the public narrative around Measure 110. There are entities that are coming together to unwind Measure 110 and are talking about taking the money away from the Council . . . and adding back criminalization. We don’t want recrim and we don’t want to change the way Measure 110 funds innovative, collaborative, flexible programs so being able to lean into that is really important.

Just yesterday, this national organization came and presented at the Arlington Club to talk about how they are going to work with local organizations to get a referral on the ballot to repeal Measure 110 in 2024. It’s a real battle that’s being waged as we speak.

(Excerpt starts around 25:20 in the video recording of the meeting.)

Williams urged the Subcommittee and OHA to “tout all the positive news about 110” with billboards, television and radio commercials using a provision of the Measure 110 implementing legislation, as amended earlier this year, which allows OHA, with OAC support, to

implement an education campaign to inform the public about the availability of Behavioral Health Resource Networks, the statewide hotline described in ORS 430.391 and any other information the authority believes would benefit the public in accessing behavioral health services.

When informed by OHA staff that funding for the education campaign is not available until July 1, 2025, Williams responded, “Waiting until 2025 to start doing commercials and billboards and that sort of thing is outrageous.”

Which it is, if you believe, as Williams apparently does, that public funds should or can be used to wage a political fight to protect Measure 110. They can’t. State law prohibits the use of public funds for political purposes and the use of state employee time for political purposes.

Nonetheless, at the next Subcommittee meeting, held August 16, OHA staff presented steps OHA could take to bolster public perception of Measure 110 sooner than July 1, 2025:

These are the first steps and goals and actions they want to take to further the message around the services being provided by Measure 110. I think everybody is in agreement that there is more than needs to be done to talk about the great work that’s being done in the community.

Screenshot of OHA staff presentation during August 16 meeting of the Media Subcommittee of the Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council.

Williams and other Subcommittee members pushed staff for more information on the timeline and intensity of OHA public outreach efforts, which staff promised to clarify at a future meeting. The next Media Subcommittee meeting is scheduled for September 20.

OAC membership is dominated by drug treatment and other professionals, like Williams, committed to retaining Measure 110 in its current form. Williams’ employer, the Health Justice Recovery Alliance’s mission is “to ensure that the Drug Addiction Treatment & Recovery Act is implemented fully and without delay.” HJRA, oddly, is not registered as a business or nonprofit or the name of a parent business or nonprofit in the Oregon’s Secretary of State’s database. Oregon law requires all businesses - nonprofit or otherwise - to register their name in that database.

HJRA’s list of supporters includes New York-headquartered Drug Policy Alliance, which seeks to end hard drug prohibition and “build a non-punitive, equitable, and regulated drug market.” Drug Policy Alliance’s political arm, Drug Policy Action contributed $5 million to help pass Measure 110 in 2020, by far the largest donor to the cause. Proponents of Measure 110 outspent opponents by $6 million to less than $200,000 overall in the 2020 campaign.

HJRA made the news last week for its plan to pay for Oregon officials, including a handful of legislators, to travel Portugal to learn about that country’s decriminalization effort. Supporters of Measure 110 point to Portugal as a success story for decriminalization. Detractors point to major differences between the Portuguese and Oregon approaches to decriminalization. Portugal, like Oregon, is having second thoughts about its experiment with hard drug decriminalization.

Former State Representative and Corrections boss Max Williams and allies are organizing an effort to recriminalize hard drugs and otherwise reform Measure 110 via the legislature or a ballot measure. I interviewed Williams for the podcast last week.

The significant majorities of Oregonians who are ready to recriminalize hard drugs in the state will have people with deep pockets and, perhaps, the weight of Oregon’s public health bureaucracy opposing them.