The state of Oregon, which has long struggled with one of the worst drug-addiction crises in the US, last year announced $20m in grants to help connect people to substance-use services.
The funds, the governor and lawmakers said, would go to counties to support a “treatment first” approach, encouraging jurisdictions to get drug users into recovery programs, instead of arresting and jailing them.
Some local governments, however, have spent the taxpayer-funded grants to beef up law enforcement.
Budget documents obtained by the Guardian through public records requests reveal that several counties have put the money toward hiring prosecutors, acquiring police gadgets and police vehicles, and covering sheriff costs. Washington county, the state’s second-largest jurisdiction, budgeted twice as much of its funds for police and district attorney salaries as it did on community programs, while two other counties used the money for laser devices that are meant to detect drugs but have been criticized as useless.
Counties have said their law enforcement investments are geared toward getting people treatment. But some recovery organizations and advocates for people with addiction said the spending was a misuse of funds meant to help people in need, and an example of governments prioritizing policing over investing in services to address an urgent public health crisis. The state has ranked last in the nation for treatment access while overdoses have surged to five deaths a day.
The counties’ spending choices also come as addiction service providers across the state are grappling with significant budget cuts, with some non-profits forced to put would-be patients and clients on long waitlists before they can get help.
The funding controversy stems from the state’s high-profile flip-flop on drug policy.
In 2020, Oregon voters passed a first-in-the-nation ballot measure to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs, aimed at treating addiction as a disease instead of a crime. But the radical initiative faced a fierce backlash and was blamed for rising rates of fentanyl overdoses, public drug use and homelessness – even though studies show there were a range of factors contributing to these problems.
Lawmakers reversed course with a bill enacted last fall that recriminalized drugs, allowing police to again arrest people for carrying small quantities. However, legislators promised the law would not be a return to “business as usual” of the war on drugs and instead set up a $20m program called “deflection”, which would allow police to refer people facing possession charges to services rather than enter the criminal legal system.
Legislators gave the state’s 36 counties wide discretion on how to implement the new law, or whether to create deflection programs at all, and the decentralized approach has allowed for significant variations in spending.
Washington county, located west of Portland, got a $1.5m deflection budget approved last year. Nearly $700,000 of it was allocated to salaries for new law enforcement positions: $283,487 for a high-level deputy district attorney; $116,664 for a legal specialist in the district attorney’s office; and $257,335 for a sheriff’s lieutenant. It also included $40,000 for overtime for the sheriff’s office.
The county, meanwhile, allotted $360,000 total for community peer mentor services meant to directly help people get services and treatment.
“These funds are limited. It’s a zero-sum game,” said Grant Hartley, a public defender. Hartley is the metropolitan public defenders director for Multnomah county, the region that includes Portland, and he sat on a committee that reviewed the deflection grants, though he didn’t have a vote. “When you spend money on a district attorney position, that might be two or three case managers you can’t hire, or a contract of services you can’t make.”
Washington county’s new law enforcement positions would be focused on implementing deflection, officials said in budget documents. However, data shows that few people have been successfully directed to treatment.
From September through early May, the county filed more than 1,000 drug-possession misdemeanor cases now allowed under recriminalization, the highest number in the state. Only roughly 75 people have been referred to deflection, as of April, the latest available records.
County officials, including the district attorney, Kevin Barton, set up strict eligibility requirements for deflection, disqualifying people who had any other charges pending or were on any supervision, such as probation. Since people targeted for possession arrests are often unhoused with criminal records, the program has been inaccessible to many who would benefit, advocates said.
“The district attorney wants to think we can still arrest our way out of the problem,” said Fernando Peña, director of El Jardín, a non-profit that serves people with substance-use disorders and operates Oregon’s only recovery drop-in centers dedicated to Latinos, including one in Washington county. “Substance-use disorder is a public health issue. We need services to deflect people to.”
Representatives for Washington county’s deflection program and the district attorney’s office did not respond to inquiries.
Other counties that prioritized law enforcement salaries to institute deflection included: Clackamas, with $259,200 for a senior district attorney; Harney, which budgeted $83,052 for the district attorney’s office and sheriff, making up 55% of its grant; Yamhill, which allotted $124,304 for a district attorney whose job included “pursuing criminal charges” against people who weren’t successful at deflection, and $4,267 for a district attorney office “remodel”; Union, which allocated $70,000, nearly half its budget, for a district attorney job; and Crook, which allocated $129,000, or 86% of its budget, for a sheriff’s position.
The budgeting decisions were approved by the state grant review committee for deflection. The interim director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, which convenes the committee, declined to comment.
Gadgets and vehicles
Budget line items in other counties have raised eyebrows.
Clatsop county budgeted $71,000 of its deflection funds for two TruNarc “spectrometers”, handheld devices that are marketed for detecting narcotics. The county said TruNarc would allow law enforcement to “scan directly through plastic bags or glass containers” to “reduce exposure”, “increase officer safety … and protect first responders”.
It’s unclear how the devices would be used to connect people to services through deflection. The devices were scrutinized in a segment on the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which investigated misuse of funds meant to stem the opioid crisis. The episode spotlighted a Wisconsin county that argued the devices protected officers from overdosing in the field, a claim rooted in the pervasive falsehood within law enforcement that mere exposure to fentanyl can be dangerous or fatal.
“This is the epitome of the funds being used to supplement law enforcement dollars. When you put out a grant without any meaningful restrictions, saying it can be spent on anything related to deflection, this is what you end up with,” said Hartley. “TruNarc was requested because of a myth about the dangers of fentanyl exposure. And by paying for it, you’re endorsing the myth.”
Polk county also spent $76,000, or 32% of its budget, on TruNarc.
Kristen Hanthorn, a Clatsop corrections lieutenant, said in an email that TruNarc was “not about officer safety”, but used to “fast-track decisions about referrals, services, and charging, if any”. The devices can be used to rule out charges, when illegal substances aren’t detected, and can yield information that can be shared with treatment providers: “We view TruNarc not as a tool of criminalization, but as one of harm reduction and service connection.”
Marion county allocated $81,000 for a new sheriff’s patrol vehicle, which it said would be used to support the “addiction population”, but also “safety of our citizens beyond … the deflection program”.
Danielle Bethell, a Marion county commissioner, said in an interview the vehicle had been assigned to a deputy who works in unhoused communities and is focused on getting people help: “We’d rather people go into treatment than jail … We really believe in connecting people to services,” Bethell said. Marion has one of the highest number of deflection referrals in Oregon.
Bill Stewart, a Clackamas county prosecutor funded by the grants, said the majority of his job was overseeing deflection and other efforts to get people in the criminal system into treatment, but he also continued to prosecute crimes, often tied to homelessness. The district attorney’s office has relationships with community groups and police agencies and was in the best position to oversee the new program, he said.
“The most cost-effective thing we can do is get people housed and treated,” he said. Clackamas county, which has logged 900 drug-possession arrests since last year, has had 47 people enter deflection, with two completions so far, he said. More people are entering treatment after they have been charged, he said.
Brandi Johnson, director of LoveOne, a non-profit that partners with Clackamas county on deflection, said she was initially skeptical of funds going to the district attorney, but said it had worked well: “We have open communication. We’re able to say: ‘What is actually going to help this person move forward?’”
Representatives for the other county deflection programs did not respond to inquiries.
Andy Ko, director of Partnership for Safety and Justice, an Oregon criminal justice reform group, said he was concerned that using the grants to fund additional prosecutors and other law enforcement investments encourages the same punitive responses to the drug crisis that have long failed.
“To keep more people alive, we have to act differently,” he said. “This is supposed to be about helping people through a crisis. That’s what the public wants. If we keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing for 60, 70 years, we’re going to get the same result.”
Since recriminalization and deflection began in September, through early May, police across Oregon have carried out nearly 7,000 arrests for possession.
Only 723 people have enrolled in deflection as of mid-April, the latest available data, and only 88 people have completed the program.
‘We need more treatment’
Some counties have prioritized treatment services and community programs over law enforcement investments and seen more progress getting people help, advocates said.
Lane county budgeted $377,304 for low-barrier emergency housing focused on treatment, and $700,000 for a services provider to handle case management, a contract that went to Ideal Option, a firm that provides addiction medication. A team of navigators supports people entering deflection, getting them housing, clothing and food, then assessing their treatment needs, signing them up for healthcare and creating a plan for their recovery, said Chris Parosa, the Lane county district attorney.
“If we were going to do a program deflecting people away from the criminal justice system, it didn’t make a lot of sense to house it in the sheriff’s office or DA’s office,” said Parosa. “We wanted to get people to our peer navigators and from there to programming they need to address their personalized issues.” He said he did not see any need to hire more district attorneys, adding: “If this worked well, we wouldn’t do any prosecutions.” He budgeted for a paralegal in his office to track data and progress of the program.
State representative Jason Kropf said he was pursuing legislation meant to increase accountability for deflection budgets, including by tying funding allotments to how effectively counties were deflecting people out of the criminal system.
Paul Solomon served on the deflection grant review committee and is chair of the Criminal Justice Commission, which has tracked data on the program. He said he hoped to see more guardrails on how the funds are spent moving forward. The state, he said in an email, was making progress toward prioritizing services over the criminal justice system, but should invest more in treatment.
“While law enforcement plays an important role in public safety and community engagement, I believe we are not yet investing enough in the treatment side of the deflection equation,” he said. “Deflection only works if people have somewhere safe to go and someone they trust to walk with them. That means funding community-based providers and peer navigators who understand the lived experience of recovery. It also means ensuring people have housing and access to consistent care – not just in urban centers, but across all regions of Oregon.”
