A leading lawmaker who helped pass the bill to recriminalize minor drug possession in Oregon finds Multnomah County’s response so far falls short.

Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, served as House speaker earlier this year when the Legislature passed House Bill 4002, a bipartisan effort that rolled back Measure 110.

Rayfield sent a letter to county Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, Mayor Ted Wheeler, Portland Police Chief Bob Day and Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell.

His letter referred to a broad sketch of the plan reported earlier this week in The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Vega Pederson is leading the charge to design and open a deflection center where police can take people found with small amounts of fentanyl and other street drugs instead of arresting them on a misdemeanor charge.

County leaders are eying property in the central east side as the short-term location for the drop-off center, multiple sources familiar with the talks said this week. Those negotiations are ongoing.

Drug users will have the choice of arrest or going to the center; what happens once they check into the center is still being worked out. However, people will not be required to undergo a substance use screening or take part in treatment, county officials said.

Rayfield and other lawmakers emphasized the role of deflection in the bill dismantling Measure 110, acknowledging the need for treatment and other services for people experiencing drug addiction.

In 2020, voters passed Measure 110, decriminalizing minor drug possession and putting it on par with a traffic ticket. At the same time, it pledged hundreds of millions of dollars for a treatment network that failed to materialize.

Lawmakers approved HB 4002 as open drug use in Portland and fentanyl overdoses statewide surged. The law makes drug possession a special category of misdemeanor.

“I do not believe Multnomah County’s proposal to have people sign into what has been described as ‘a drop off center of sorts’ without a screening or follow-up plan complies with either best practices or the requirements of the bill,” wrote Rayfield, who is running for attorney general.

Rayfield’s former senior policy adviser, Alicia Temple, is helping coordinate the county’s approach.

Temple and other leaders have said the plan is still under consideration and is expected to change over time as services, such as treatment and detox, come on line. Detox is a critical starting point for treatment for people suffering from fentanyl addiction.

Vega Pederson on Friday did not directly address Rayfield’s criticism. She said the county is working with city and county offices, as well as the presiding Circuit Court judge and representatives from public defense “to create a successful system of deflection.”

She said the county is committed to improving public safety and reducing public drug use and overdoses.

A spokesperson for Day referred to the chief’s statement earlier this week, which said he remains concerned about treatment resources and hopeful about officers’ ability to confiscate drugs on the street.

The sheriff’s spokesperson did not respond to an email late Friday.

Rayfield said HB 4002 gave counties the chance to “to create treatment-first deflection programs intended to follow nationally recognized best practices.”

The idea behind such programs: Create a path away from the criminal justice system for people whose only offense is drug possession. Lawmakers left it to counties to decide how their programs would work and who would be eligible. They made clear during the session that they wanted to see people routed away from jail and toward treatment and other services.

Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, who served on the committee that worked on HB 4002, said he plans to “check in with county leaders and say OK, there has to be more to this.”

“I understand why forcing people into treatment is challenging, but this is what we passed,” he said. “It’s kind of what voters want and there are enough people that deal with this topic that tell us that sometimes you need a little bit of a stick to shove people toward making better choices.”

Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards said the plan so far “has been built out of the public view” with little input from the rest of the board.

She said the county’s approach must require more from people who opt for deflection.

“An endless revolving door and no required connection to detox or treatment is not much different than the ineffective citations that were part of ballot measure 110,” she said.

Rayfield also pressed Schmidt to include his successor, Nathan Vasquez, in planning discussions around deflection, saying “it will take collaboration and determination from all levels of government to solve the addiction crisis.”

Schmidt and Vasquez waged bitter, personal campaigns. Schmidt, a one-term incumbent, lost in the May primary to Vasquez, a longtime prosecutor. Schmidt has said he plans to remain on the job until December; he has so far declined Vasquez’s requests to participate in the deflection planning process.

Rayfield encouraged Schmidt to move on from the election.

“Elections and transitions of leadership in government are tough and wrapped in emotion,” Rayfield wrote. “Now more than ever we must put these issues aside and work together.”

Schmidt’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the group that effectively leveraged the threat of a ballot measure to push Rayfield and his colleagues in the Legislature into an effective repeal of Measure 110 also wrote to Vega Pederson and other city and county leaders, saying the proposal so far will “perpetuate the status quo rather than disrupting and fixing it.”

Max Williams, who led that effort, encouraged an approach that requires substance abuse screenings and provides “clear and objective access to treatment with criminal justice consequences if unsuccessful.

Wheeler’s press office declined to respond to Williams’ complaints, calling deflection “a county initiative.”

-- Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184; ncrombie@oregonian.

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