When hyperlocal becomes hyper-revealing

Editorial

I have never pretended to cover state or even city news comprehensively. But my hyperlocal gaze keeps catching flashes of the bigger picture.

I have had a front-row seat as Portland’s harm-reduction absolutists are being exposed in a way that could tip the Oregon governor’s race. Republican nominee Christine Drazan has been working with a cohort of residents mobilized around the drug paraphernalia handouts that went on at Northwest 19th and Burnside streets for several years. Their concerns did not even command the agendas of the two affected neighborhood associations, yet the whole state may be paying attention to this saga by November.

An unabashedly anarchist group called Portland Peoples Outreach Project had been handing out syringes, pipes, hygiene products and snacks near the McDonald’s on West Burnside for about a decade, drawing throngs of drug users who in turn attracted drug dealers. People shooting up in plain view, sprawled out bodies blocking the sidewalk and frequent mental health episodes—all amid campsites and piles of garbage—were only half of the story.

Drug dealers who found the lawless pocket ideal for their purposes acted to see that their marketplace was not disrupted, which neighbors were doing by protesting and drawing news coverage.

Turf warfare involves intimidating citizens so they do not call the police or interfere with illegal activities.

A Stadiumhood Neighbors woman was threatened by groups of masked hoodlums taunting her with chilling reminders that they knew where she lived.

Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez saw a KPTV news clip last year and went on air, declaring that his entire staff was outraged upon seeing video of threats and intimidation against neighbors of this hot spot.

“That particular piece—that upset me,” Vasquez said. “No person should be harassed or threatened in any manner.”

Viewers of any political affiliation would have found the scene upsetting, but state Sen. Lisa Reynolds had another concern: Limiting these no-rules needle handouts would put a crimp on anyone engaged in “harm reduction,” an approach addressing the secondary health consequences of used needles.

This practice has wide acceptance in the medical profession and among local social agencies, but studies they rely upon assume qualified providers endeavoring to move addicts toward treatment. PPOP, which moved its 19th Avenue distribution spot to the Pearl District this year, takes no measures to promote recovery. Its core tenet is that everyone has the right to decide what they put into their own bodies without outside judgment. Needless to say, PPOP does no outreach to the neighborhood residents that it impacts.

There may be a division of opinion as to whether harm reduction has its place, but reckless operations such as PPOP are not something a mainstream politician would be expected to defend.

However, District 17 state Sen. Lisa Reynolds put off Stadiumhood Neighbors and their hyper-local partners, Friends of Couch Park, for three years as the situation stewed. The only elected official willing to take them seriously was Drazan, the senator from Canby who is again running for governor.

Reynolds could have known Drazan was interested in the statewide implications of a story pitting caretaking neighbors against drug dealers terrorizing them. But Reynolds controlled the path proposed legislation had to travel, and she saw a threat to harm reduction practices anywhere as a threat to harm reduction practices everywhere.

“It would have done away with harm reduction,” she said.

Never mind that the bill would only have applied to mobile distribution sites and then only near schools.

Asked to explain her dire prediction, she told the Examiner, “If you draw a 2,000-foot radius around every school and preschool, I suspect there’d be very few corners left in Portland where harm reduction supplies could be distributed from a mobile service.”

Neighbors and Sen. Drazan were willing to reduce the radius to 1,000 feet, but Reynolds’ feet were planted. She killed the bill in her committee without exploring such modifications.

Was the end of harm reduction an exaggeration?

“That’s fair, but it certainly would have eliminated mobile distribution of harm reduction supplies,” she told the Examiner after re-election to her senate seat last month. “So that’s a valid point.”

The senator may be more conciliatory now, and she is advocating for a Multnomah County licensing system for mobile harm reduction suppliers. But she and her party may be asked again and again why they took the side of illegal drug consumption and its enablers against the good neighbors when it mattered.