From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bolarro.

This is the Daily.

Three years ago, Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs.

Now, they're about to reverse course.

Today, my colleague, Mike They're about to reverse course.

Today, my colleague Mike Baker,

on what went wrong. It's Tuesday, March 12th.

Mike, I want to begin with how and why the state of Oregon ever decided to

decriminalize hard drugs, the decision that really sets this entire story into motion.

Yeah, I mean if we go back five years ago just before the pandemic,

we can all remember the opioid crisis that was spreading across the country and Oregon on its own was really

struggling.

Drug overdoses had been rising at quite an alarming rate and the state ranked among the worst in access to drug treatment at the time.

And as we know, arrest in jail have been a central strategy to combating drugs for decades and for people in Oregon they're looking around saying

This has not been working that model is broken. It's time for a new path and one of the options that began to emerge was is it time to

decriminalize these drugs and focus on treatment and there was already a roadmap that

suggested decriminalization could work.

Just explain that.

Well, if you remember, Washington State and Colorado in 2012

legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

Oregon legalized it shortly after in 2014.

And the states that followed that path, you know,

...