Pity Poor Portland, Oregon

It was the first state in the USA
to experiment with reducing racism
by legalising all drugs, in Measure 110
passed in 2020, since the drug laws
were the commonest cause
by which black and brown people
were disproportionately convicted of crime.

There were several reasons why,
for all the wealth and good intent
the project failed; taxing cannabis
raised a lot of revenue that the state
was slow to redistribute in rehab centres
and the genuine medicalisation
of the problem of addiction,
whether physical or psychological.

Then Covid turned society inside out
and upside down by limiting when,
and how, citizens could safely meet
and greet each on the streets.

Isolation amid addiction
increased addiction further,
listen to all the explanations
on BBC World Service here. 

But what finally did for the project
was lawlessness from beyond the border,
namely from the Mexican drug cartels
flooding the USA first, then the world,
with cheap and concentrated Fentanyl
in quantities enough to destroy all civic reasoning. 

Given how the raw ingredients for fentanyl
come from China I am surprised how little
anyone has mentioned 'the opium wars'.

But then in America, televised democracy
is now the legal opiate of the people, set up
as the longest running soap opera of all....