Vermont lawmakers grapple with drug decriminalization

MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) - As state leaders search for ways to combat Vermont’s drug crisis, some say the state should look at decriminalizing drugs. But Oregon recently rolled back an initiative to treat addiction through a public health lens instead of putting people in jail. So what can Vermont-- a state battling a scourge of addiction and fatal overdoses-- learn from Oregon?

In 2020, facing a shortage of treatment services, Oregon voters approved ballot measure 110, making them the first state in the nation to decriminalize small amounts of all drugs and giving people the option to seek treatment to avoid civil penalties.

“Expanding access to behavioral health services and substance use disorder prevention treatment and recovery is critical,” then-governor Kate Brown, D-Oregon, said in 2020.

The bill was aimed at treating addiction through a public health lens, but critics say those treatment systems were never built out and the bill exacerbated the drug problem and increased public safety concerns. So this spring, the Oregon Legislature walked back the bill.

Vermont state Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky pitched a similar decriminalization proposal, funneling cost savings from incarceration to treatment. But in the face of skyrocketing overdoses, it has not been taken up.

“In any given moment when you’re looking at something, you need to look holistically at the system and not thinking that one policy is going to solve everything,” said Vyhovsky, P-Chittenden County.

Addiction has become more visible in Burlington in recent years. Last fall, in an at-times emotional hearing, the Burlington City Council declared a public health crisis in the Queen City. Some who spoke said consequences were key to entering treatment.

“The desire to change comes from discomfort. I didn’t ask for help until I had been arrested and was facing a lengthy prison sentence, as well as my friends and family were no longer willing to provide me any form of comfort,” Andrew Juhauz of Burlington said on Oct. 10, 2023.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers in Montpelier are moving in two opposite directions, appearing to give the greenlight to safe injection sites while also stiffening penalties for fentanyl and xylazine.

Gov. Phil Scott has supported increased penalties for dealing narcotics and has promised to veto the safe injection bill over logistic and moral objections, instead preferring treatment.

“We can’t let our foot off the gas with this one,” said Scott, R-Vermont. “We need to get them into treatment when they’re ready and on a better path.”

Though he acknowledges it’s a challenge to get people into treatment programs in the first place.

But while Oregon rolls back its decriminalization efforts, Vyhovsky, the backer in Vermont, says advancing a similar proposal is a yearslong effort.

“A lot of people in the building are grappling with conflicting experiences and conflicting values and beliefs, and trying to thread the needle that makes the most sense to them,” Vyhovsky said.

At the same time, the types of drugs on the streets in our region are evolving with law enforcement reporting an increase in the stimulant methamphetamine, posing new challenges to how to enforce and treat addiction.

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