Vasquez addiction solution needs support from state

Multnomah County district attorney's plan will work if Oregon provides a dedicated public defender

Multnomah County finally has a path out of its drug-policy disaster — but only if our leaders act. District Attorney Nathan Vasquez has announced a solution that restores consequences for people who refuse treatment under the county’s failed deflection model. However, for it to work, the Oregon Public Defense Commission must approve his request for a dedicated indigent-defense attorney. Without that basic support, Multnomah County will continue the same failed trajectory.

Five years ago, Oregon voters were fooled by a well-funded campaign to believe that decriminalizing hard-drug possession would help people in addiction avoid prosecution and access treatment. That false promise fueled passage of Measure 110.

Overnight, the law emptied out treatment programs, pushed people with addiction onto the streets, eviscerated the government’s ability to intervene and resulted in steep increases in overdose deaths.

It did this because voters did not fully grasp what drug addiction involves or how current programs were dealing with it at the time. Those using drugs need both carrots and sticks to overcome their addiction and often save their lives from its consequences. It was the system in most Oregon counties. People struggling with addiction weren’t being jailed for extended terms or saddled with life-destroying convictions. They were being directed into proven programs—like Multnomah County’s long-running STOP Court—that paired incentives with consequences to achieve real, lasting recovery.

Last year, the Legislature attempted to repair the damage by passing HB 4002, which restored criminal penalties for most hard-drug possession cases and invested in treatment. The bill also allowed counties to create “deflection centers,” where police could take people for assessment and treatment referrals instead of jail and prior to any criminal charges.

Twenty-three counties—covering almost 90% of Oregon’s residents—set up deflection systems. Each had the freedom to tailor its program. That’s precisely where Multnomah County veered off course.

Vasquez, though elected in May, would not take office until January. The state required deflection programs to launch on Sept. 1. Most counties met the deadline with models that included meaningful consequences for refusing or quitting treatment.

Multnomah County was the exception.

In “No Consequences” Multnomah County, Chair Jessica Vega Pederson excluded Vasquez from the process and created a deflection model with no accountability. It launched late, lacked structure and imposed zero consequences for failing to engage. Predictably, the program collapsed.

As The Oregonian reported, since opening in September 2024, the Multnomah County deflection center received 606 visits. Most people dropped out. Only 113 completed even the minimal requirements. A more than $4 million program ended up serving roughly two people a day—and did next to nothing for them.

This outcome wasn’t surprising. After 35 years as a prosecutor, I’ve seen the same pattern repeatedly. Oregon’s three-year experiment with Measure 110 proved it again: Treatment programs without accountability simply do not work for people whose addiction has already brought them into contact with law enforcement.

That is why Vasquez’s announcement matters: Beginning on Jan. 5, criminal charges will be filed when individuals refuse the program or fail to participate meaningfully. This is the leverage that makes treatment effective.

Unfortunately, there is one more obstacle. The state of Oregon has allowed Multnomah County’s public defense system to refuse new cases when attorneys feel overburdened—a crisis of the state’s own making. For Vasquez’s plan to succeed, the Oregon Public Defense Commission—the state agency responsible—must approve his request for a dedicated public defender to handle these cases.

Let’s hope they approve the plan. Otherwise we risk wasting millions more on a failed county program that offers no consequences and zero accountability.

Norm Frink is a former Multnomah County prosecutor who tried felony cases from 1977 until his recent retirement.