BEND, OR -- Three weeks into Deschutes County's new deflection program, Bend Police say it's working to get drug offenders into treatment instead of jail. Police Chief Mike Krantz says officers have - so far - encountered 13 people eligible for the program. "I think we're going to have to see some time before we get real numbers and understand how those numbers play out. But certain folks are eligible to be deflected, depending on their history and the types of crime they're involved in, and there's certain folks that are not. So, of those 13 or so eligible-type crimes, eight people were deflected and seven [are still] in it. So that's a really high continuance rate." He tells KBND News, "I think that's a really good number, that just over three weeks or so, we've used the program exactly how we think it's set up for, and that people are still engaged in it. Which, those seven individuals that are still in it, that's a success for them; that's really a success for our community that we, as police officers, aren't back out having to deal with folks that are in the throes of addiction."

Possession of user-amounts of illicit drugs became illegal again in Oregon on September first, under HB 4002. But Krantz says it took time for officers to get trained to offer deflection. "It was a very short timeline for us to be prepared for that. We did our training the week of September 18th, to really understand how to use the deflection program that was created in Deschutes County." He says some officers had a steep learning curve, "Many of our officers have never been a police officer when drugs were illegal."