Their main excuse? Police were never properly trained on how to handle possession and use cases so they now want to offer immunity for a misdemeanor if you take treatment instead. If not, you get a misdemeanor and the draconian shit starts all over again. Source
We didn’t do the access to treatment part correctly, from my perspective. OPB’s Oregon On the Record had some good interviews about this. The real heavy lifting was getting people into treatment and off drugs, but we didn’t fund it well.