SALEM, OR -- Oregon’s Senate suspended rules Friday to get Measure 110 reforms up for a vote the day after the package passed the House. Again, both the policy bill creating an unclassified misdemeanor for drug possession and the corresponding $211 million spending bill passed with broad bipartisan support. 

Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) said Friday, "I’m glad to stand on the Senate floor today and report to Oregonians: you won." He says the $211 million spending package puts an important focus on kids, "We have set aside money for prevention and for identifying drug-endangered children."

Sen. Elizabeth Steiner (D-NW Portland) says it’ll also pay for workforce training, public safety and 400 more treatment beds in 16 counties, "We are investing in every corner of this state so that people can receive care for their addiction close to home." She adds, "In Madras, we’ll see Oregon’s first ever treatment facility solely for Latina women. Klamath County will have new capacity for residential treatment and crisis stabilization. Ontario will have a new integrated behavioral health facility with supportive housing."

Eastern Oregon Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Vale) is pleased to see funding headed to rural areas. He says under the current model, his constituents must drive hundreds of miles to access drug treatment, "The people of Ontario, Prineville, Madras, Terrebonne, Burns, Baker City, John Day, Lakeview, Nyssa, Long Creek, as well as 90 other communities in my district have a right to the same amount of public safety as the people in Portland, Salem or Eugene. The citizens in my district have the same right to mental health and addiction services as the urban areas of this state." 

Opposing the bills for not going far enough to repeal Measure 110, Senator Dennis Linthicum (R-Klamath Falls) invoked memories of an old PSA of an egg in a frying pan, "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. And, what we’re trying to do with all of these monies is put the fried egg back in the broken shell, the broken body of a former person who could’ve had a healthy life."

Others expressed concerns over racial equity. And Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) is frustrated the newly created unclassified misdemeanor for drug possession doesn’t have an expiration date, "It does re-criminalization of possession of a user amount of controlled substances into perpetuity. It is here to stay."

They now head to the Governor’s desk and would take effect when signed.