Portland, Ore. has reached a new low thanks to pro-crime policies from the city and state: It’s declared a state of emergency over the fentanyl crisis blighting the city.
Who could’ve seen this coming? Only every thinking person.
In 2020, Portland made drug use — even of hard drugs — de facto legal via Measure 110.
Crime-loving progressives within the City of Roses and around the nation greeted the move with shouts of approval.
Oops: Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, driven by fentanyl, jumped 533% in Multnomah County from 2018 to 2022.
In other words, the “let’s encourage everyone to kill themselves” law didn’t solve the city’s drug problem, but drastically deepened it.
At first, woke city officials went in for “harm reduction,” handing out snorting kits, tinfoil, and smoking straws to the users who litter the streets.
Surprise, surprise: Didn’t help a bit.
Now Portland’s mayor, the state’s governor, and legislature finally admit the problem.
“Everything’s on the table,” said a Democratic state senator.
The real question is: How many times will great American cities have to go through this?
San Francisco, which made drug use de facto legal, saw the same results and declared its own state of emergency.
Look at Philly, where fentanyl has zombified its most vulnerable citizens.
Or New York, where the Health Department encourages people to use heroin and tranq.
This isn’t rocket science.
If you encourage deadly drugs, you get more deadly drug use and all the attendant violence and property crime that go with it: death, degradation, and social decay (and plenty of lefty nonprofits swooping in to hoover up taxpayer bucks).
This is patently obvious to anyone willing to look.
Some of Portland’s woke politicos seem to have opened their eyes.
But unless there’s a full accounting and rollback of these awful policies, the tragedy will only continue.
