On Wednesday, February 7 at 5 PM, Oregon lawmakers — through the Joint Interim Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response — will hear and receive testimony on the addiction crisis in Oregon. This will likely be the one and only chance for the public to weigh in this legislative session.
State lawmakers are recklessly pushing forward with House Bill (HB) 4002, which will criminalize Oregonians — both youth and adults — who are caught by police with very small, user-level amounts of drugs.
Lawmakers insist that they will mitigate the harms and violence of the criminal system by “deflecting” people away from jail and prison to connect them with treatment and resources.
However, the current criminal system is not equipped to effectively deflect people away from jail and prison.
With HB 4002, lawmakers are knowingly repeating the failed war on drugs — which wasted billions of tax dollars that should have been used for treatment and housing on police, jails, and prisons and inflicted government harm and violence on people, especially Black, brown, Indigenous, low-income, LGBTQ+, and rural Oregonians.
Make no mistake. The ACLU of Oregon adamantly opposes any and all actions by lawmakers to arrest and jail Oregonians experiencing drug addiction.
Jail and criminalization are not real solutions to drug addiction or homelessness. Real solutions involve more treatment, housing, non-police mobile crisis counselors, and neighborhood clean-up and revitalization programs.
We need Oregonians to tell state lawmakers: Yes to real solutions, NO to the false and harmful promises of criminalization.
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FILL OUT OUR ACTION ALERT TO SUBMIT WRITTEN TESTIMONY — it only takes a few minutes!
- Use this link
- Complete the form with your contact information (this will be kept private)
- Edit the message to fit your personal experience
- Keep in mind that testimony is public — do not include information that you would like to remain private
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SIGN UP TO GIVE VERBAL TESTIMONY — remotely or in-person at the Capitol in Salem.
- Use this link
- Select ‘Joint Interim Committee on Addiction and Community Safety Response’
- Select the ‘2/7/24 5:00 PM' hearing
- Select HB 4002
- Enter your name, email, and organization or city
- Select the ‘Oppose’ option
- Select ‘In Person’ or ‘Remotely’ (People there in person are more likely to be called up to testify)
- Upload your testimony, either as text or a PDF
- You can review our 'How-To' for virtual testimony
- Remember that testimony will likely be limited to two minutes, or approximately 200 words. However, it is still very important for you to attend and testify in-person, if you can.
- Let us know if you can join us in person by signing up here!
Here is a helpful guide with detailed instructions, testimony template, and sample messaging.
You can ALso learn more about this work at our hub for Solutions for Safe and Just Communities!
