The Portugal junket to save Measure 110

The group propping up Oregon's hard drug decriminalization law plans to pay for legislators to travel to Portugal next week to learn about drug decrim there. It's a bad idea.

Not Seaside, Oregon.

The Health Justice Recovery Alliance (“HJRA”), the Portland organization dedicated to preserving and continuing Oregon’s experiment in hard drug decriminalization, will next week take a hand-selected group of Oregon elected officials and others from the state to Portugal on a “fact-finding” trip related to that country’s decriminalization program, according to Fox 12 Oregon.

News about the trip broke in September, and generated controversy as voters’ taste for Ballot Measure 110 has soured considerably since they overwhelmingly approved its mix of hard drug decriminalization and massive spending on drug treatment in 2020. Conspicuously, after the initial blowback to the trip, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, locked in a tough re-election battle in which his opponent accuses him, correctly, of being soft on drug and other crimes, decided not to go on the trip at all.

When I saw that Schmidt was backing out of the trip, I put a pin in the idea of writing a post when the trip was cancelled altogether, which I thought likely. I even emailed the HJRA a week ago to ask whether the trip was still on. I didn’t receive a response for some reason (I’m sure they’re very busy).

Well, the trip is, apparently, still going to happen, which is wild and probably a bad idea for most everyone involved. But before the bad idea part, here’s what we know about the trip.

The sponsor, HJRA, is an advocacy group that exists to promote and to protect Measure 110. As the measure has become unpopular with regular Oregonians, and an effort to recriminalize hard drugs in the 2024 legislative session or in a ballot measure has gained steam, HJRA has worked overtime to circle the wagons around the embattled measure. Its employee has, successfully, leaned on the Oregon Health Authority to use public funds to prop up Measure 110. Its ally co-authored a pro-Measure 110 study, without disclosing her conflict of interest as a 110 funding recipient and chief petitioner, which later was recycled by OHA as proof that Measure 110 is working swell. And it is planning next week’s Portugal trip, which probably seemed like a good idea when it went on the white board in the conference room over the summer, except that HJRA, which believes laws criminalizing hard drug possession “were designed to target, oppress, control and marginalize people and communities of color” probably calls them white supremacy boards.

HJRA is usually coy about its funding, but Executive Director Tera Hurst did tell Fox 12 that the funding for the trip - HJRA is paying travel expenses for most of the attendees in the amount of $2,500, according to The Oregonian - comes from the organization’s operating account, which in turn is supported “by national private foundations and some local who care about criminal justice reform and racial justice and health equity.”

The reasonable presumption is that HJRA is funded largely by New York-based Drug Policy Alliance (“DPA”), the George Soros-funded pro-decriminalization “national private foundation” that plowed $5 million into getting Measure 110 passed in the first place. Oregon is ground zero for the DPA’s and Soros’s hypothesis that hard drug decriminalization is an important part of a more effective drug policy. HJRA is the vehicle through which DPA is attempting to save its experiment.

The trip itself, which Hurst insists is “a genuine fact-finding mission,” is what opponents might call a junket, or a trip to a nice place designed to influence a public official’s view of a policy matter. According to a partial itinerary provided by HJRA to Fox 12, Participants will be welcomed to Portugal with a reception the evening of October 29. Over the following days, they will meet with Portuguese government officials and drug- and addiction-related nongovernmental organizations. The itinerary wraps up November 2. During the junket, the weather in Portland, Oregon is, predictably, forecast to be in the mid-50s with some sun and some rain showers. It’s supposed to be in the upper 60s with rain and some sun in Lisbon, Portugal, which I hear is nice.

Here’s the list of the people who, according to Fox 12, intend to go to Portugal with HJRA, along with what, if anything, they have said publicly about who’s paying for their trip:

• Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) (Says “HJRA is helping pay for my trip”)

• Rep. Lily Morgan (R-Grants Pass) (On the record opponent of Measure 110) (Says HJRA is paying for her trip)

• Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) (Prozanski previously sought the Oregon Government Ethics Commission’s opinion on the permissibility of travelling on HJRA’s dime to Portugal, which OGEC blessed)

• Sen. Majority Leader Kate Lieber (D-Beaverton & SW Portland) (Lieber says she will pay for her trip)

• Sgt. Aaron Schmautz, President, Portland Police Association (Schmautz says his expenses to be paid by Portland Police Association)

• Detective Scotty Nowning, President, Salem Police Employee’s Union (SPEU)

• Kimberly McCullough, Dept. of Justice

• Channa Newell, Multnomah Co. District Attorney’s Office (replaced backed-out Mike Schmidt) (The DA’s office says HJRA will pay for Newell’s trip)

• Jessica Vega Pederson, Chair, Multnomah County Commission (Vega Pederson says she is paying for her trip personally)

• Monta Knudson, CEO, Bridges to Change

• Mark Harris, mental health/addictions counseling, education, and training expert (Harris says HJRA will reimburse him personally for travel expenses)

• Shannon Olive, Founder & CEO, WomenFirst Transition & Referral Center

• Mercedes Elizalde, Director of Advocacy, Latino Network

• Janie Gullickson, Executive Director, Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon

• Paul Solomon, Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. (The Criminal Justice Commission says Solomon is not going on the trip in his official capacity as Chair of the Criminal Justice Commission or as a representative of the agency.)

• Fernando Peña, Executive Director, Northwest Instituto Latino

• Andy Ko, Executive Director, Partnership for Safety & Justice (Partnership for Safety & Justice says it is paying for Ko’s trip)

• Morgan Godvin, drug policy researcher

• HJRA staff

(Source, Fox 12, with some details about participants added by me).

I am, frankly, surprised HJRA is going through with the trip. A junket is a really good way for a special interest group to impart information, and gain the affinity, of a captive audience. There is no other mechanism that would give HJRA the degree of sustained, exclusive access to decisionmakers and well-placed stakeholders in an exotic foreign location.

When I was a 25-year-old very inconsequential congressional staffer, I went on a junket to Taiwan, paid for by the Taiwanese government. The purpose was, basically, to make congressional staffers like Taiwan in the hope that we would influence our bosses to vote in a Taiwan-friendly manner. It worked, partially. I like Taiwan! But I never had any influence on any Taiwan issues in Congress and returned to Oregon from DC the following year.

The problems with the HJRA junket are many. The timing is a problem because it is widely assumed the legislature will have serious discussions about potential changes to Measure 110 in next year’s session, now just a few months away. While it may seem like ideal timing for HJRA to take these folks to Europe just before they vote on Measure 110, it’s not.

And that’s because everyone who cares to knows about the trip. When Senator Prozanski, who is a longstanding champion of Measure 110 and the chair of the committee with jurisdiction over it, works overtime to preserve the measure next year, it would be appropriate for the media to describe him as someone who went on the HJRA trip to Portugal, presumably at HJRA’s, or really DPA’s, expense. The media may not do that because, well, you know, but Prozanski nonetheless leaves himself open to criticism of undue influence during the Measure 110 debate or afterward. Same with the other attendees.

There is much more information about Oregon’s drug decriminalization experiment in voters’ grasp now than even six months ago. The fact is, Portugal’s decriminalization is much different than Oregon’s, and includes, among other things, state entities that can force addicts into treatment, and bans on public drug use. And Portugal is having second thoughts about the merits of its decriminalization efforts in any event. Lots of Oregonians know the problems with a surface Portugal-to-Oregon comparison. Measure 110 backers have long leaned on that comparison, but it doesn’t really work very well anymore as an advocacy tactic, especially now that Oregonians can see for themselves the reality of life under Measure 110.

Finally, most Oregonians have never been to Portugal and some will resent public officials taking a jaunt from Oregon’s cold rain to Portugal’s warm rain and other attractions on the dime of the same people who inflicted Measure 110 on them in the first place.

You can tell that Oregon state government and the progressive groups that install people in leadership positions therein still think they are operating in a low information environment, in which they are free to operate more or less as they please without fear of public backlash.

Measure 110 is not such an environment, anymore. HJRA and the folks going on its junket are likely to find that out, firsthand, soon.