The Western U.S. has been conducting an experiment that went awry. What began as loosening restrictions on the recreational use of marijuana snowballed into legalizing the possession and use of hard drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. Now, states are starting to reconsider the wisdom of those policies. At the beginning of September, Oregon’s 3 […]
Oregon was the first state to vote entirely by mail, the first state to offer over-the-counter birth control, and the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Three years ago, Oregon embarked on another first-in-the-nation feat: Passing a policy to decriminalize hard drugs in an attempt to focus on treatment over punishment to help turn the […]
Ataxpayer funded housing support group in Portland, Oregon, has been offering grants of $30,000 to first-time buyers in the state, but with only those who are not U.S. citizens eligible to apply. The money was offered by the Hacienda Community Development Corporation (HCDC) as part of its “Camino a Casa,” which is advertised as being […]
Oregon lawmakers have moved to reintroduce criminal penalties for the possession of hard drugs, in effect ending the state’s groundbreaking three-year decriminalization experiment. In 2020, nearly 60% of voters moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs with the passage of Measure 110, but the new law had grown increasingly controversial as […]
Mike McCarter knows his American history almost as well as he knows his Bible. His family has lived and worshipped in Oregon for four generations. “The only time I lived out of the state was during the Vietnam War when I was in the military,” he said. But his Oregon may not be the […]
Throwing money out the window has a new meaning. Authorities in Oregon say a driver was hurling cash out of his vehicle on Tuesday, leaving the roadside reportedly littered with $100 bills and prompting drivers in both directions to stop and collect the notes. The Oregon State Police and other local agencies received calls around […]
A ruling by a state court judge placed Oregon’s tough new voter-approved gun law on hold late Tuesday, just hours after a federal court judge allowed the ban on the sale and transfer of high-capacity magazines to take effect this week. The ruling by Harney County Judge Robert Raschio threw the implementation of Measure 114 […]
Oregon will ask voters in the coming days whether to significantly increase restrictions on guns. If passed, a ballot measure in that state would require people who want to buy a gun to pay a fee, take a safety course, submit fingerprints and pass a background check to obtain a permit. High-capacity magazines — those […]
The streets of downtown Portland, Oregon, resemble an open-air drug market. Heroin, meth and fentanyl use is rampant and often visible on city streets. Portland police officers drive by homeless addicts buying and using. The signs of drug addiction are actually increasing throughout the state, according to law enforcement sources. Oregon ranks second-highest among U.S. […]
A gray wolf born in Oregon has been tracked by researchers for the past three years, and officials in California recently declared he died last month after being struck by a vehicle. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced on Nov. 24 that the gray wolf, known as OR93, died from trauma consistent with a […]
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year. In what […]
