I am an Oregonian. The Legislative Assembly is caving to public pressure.

I want to first say that this isn't about whether decriminalisation works. The views I am about to present are not necessarily held by me, but I am merely talking about the existence of these opinions because they deserve discussion.

People, in Oregon, generally viewed the decriminalisation programme as a failure. The Legislative Assembly failed to fund the necessary companion programmes and police training that would have been needed to give it the best chance of succeeding. Instead, when the referendum passed and decriminalisation came into force (without the involvement of the Legislative Assembly), they decided to just let it fail.

The reasons why decriminalisation failed are debated, but only a small subset of voters are privy to this debate and even understand the arguments. The rest see a failed experiment where the Government just legalised all drugs. It's easy to believe the latter and since it sounds logical to most people, that's where they stop thinking about it.

As a result, a majority of Oregonians believe that decriminalisation has failed, and the Legislative Assembly is acting on that.

Some people in this thread are blaming pharmaceutical companies and lobbying. That is a knee-jerk, unreasoned and ignorant reaction that fails at any amount of serious scrutiny and reflects an utter ignorance of what Oregonians actually think. If anything, pharmaceutical companies would have everything to gain from people having easier access to their products.

Because citizens stepped over hobo shit in front of their front door one too many times, went to their representatives and said "this shit has to stop!" and the representatives went "You're right! There ought to be a law!"

It's a State version of this:

https://youtu.be/SZ8psP4S6BQ

Because voter input is all an illusion.

Ultimately because its how the legislative system works. If drugs had been put into the state constitution as a right then they could not.

Making decisions is the whole point of repesentives. If you don't like their choices, don't vote for them. Unfortunately, most places use first-past-the-post voting, which tends to result in 2 extreme parties, and people end up having to vote for the one that sucks less.

dollars = votes, pharma companies provided plenty of voter input …

What are you going to do about it?

Making decisions is the whole point of repesentives. If you don't like their choices, don't vote for them. Unfortunately, most places use first-past-the-post voting, which tends to result in 2 extreme parties, and people end up having to vote for the one that sucks less.