Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Addiction, dysfunction, and the battle for Portland.
It’s 10:30 p.m. on West Burnside Avenue in Portland, Oregon. Morbid figures drag themselves up and down the street. They have erected tents on sidewalks, where they smoke meth and fentanyl, obtained for as little as a dollar. Many hunch over, “nodding out” to preserve their high. Many are in wheelchairs. Portlanders step over them on their way to a night out at the handful of bars and clubs that remain open in the area.
Scenes like these epitomize the aftermath of pandemic-era drug decriminalization, police cuts, and progressive approaches to prosecution — policies that have left Oregon’s largest city with an under-resourced, understaffed police bureau struggling to enforce basic laws. The weirdness that once attracted so many to the Rose City has devolved into pervasive disorder and squalor, turning Portland into a case study in failed urban governance.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Daily Wire
______________________
Adam Lehodey is an investigative reporter at the Manhattan Institute, focused on questions of governance, economics and culture in New York City.