Current Oregon resident, born and raised. Went thru heavy addiction the past 5 years, currently trying to figure out sobriety, but here is what I have seen and know...
As previous comments have mentioned, the new law Measure 110 has decriminalized, not legalized. Meaning that being in possession of drugs in "personal" amounts (which are actually fairly reasonable amounts) and having the police find them means that you will only be written a ticket for a $100 fine, or you can choose to ask for help from the legal system and enter into a drug treatment program and not have the fine and ticket on your record.
Generally the biggest thing this means is that a possession is no longer a CRIMINAL issue, so a background check for a job or whatever will not turn up with you having a drug possession charge. It's like getting a traffic citation, or a parking ticket, or citation for not having your fishing license.
The thing to keep in mind is that drugs/druggie behavior/purchasing/carrying and the tolerance thereof can only really be considered from two points, you're either in Multnomah County, which is where most of Portland, the largest city in the State is located or you are somewhere else. Oregon is a very large state comparatively. 300 miles from north to south border, 400 miles west to east. The largest county in Oregon is Harney county and has something like 7,500 residents. It is slightly larger than the US state Maryland, which has 6,200,000 residents.
If you are in Portland, you will almost never have a reason to be getting searched by the Police and end up having your drugs found. The Police force has been reduced so low that petty crime has become so common the population is actually starting to drop in the city. Murders are up as well but generally confined to the Black population, the very low socioeconomic homeless and/or criminal-types downtown and a mix of hispanic, white, asian and black drug users on the far east side. The entire city is generally quite safe, regardless of what people will say, mostly because they have never lived in an actually dangerous city. Having lived in Washington DC for three years, copped my first bags of H in Kensington (entirely skipping b'more and their bullshit scramble thankyouverymuch) I feel like I can make the previous statement with some authority.
Drug use and truly drug ABUSE is rampant in Portland. I would hazard to guess that 10% of the residents are using hard drugs daily, and another 20-30% are smoking weed or drinking disgusting fucking IPA beer in a manner which could be considered substance abuse. Portland has a long history of excessive drinking and glamorized drug culture and problems that go with it, but things have been elevated to some next level shit, and the effects are really starting to show.
I've personally saved three people who OD'd on fent right in front of me, either thru CPR and sternum rubs for 60+ minutes, or calling emergency services and doing CPR until they got there. I have also seen lately that often emergency services won't even show up, and that narcan often doesn't do shit. All three of those people are now dead from fent overdosing while they were alone.
Getting drugs in Portland is fairly easy, getting good drugs reliably at a good price takes a little bit of effort. The problem stems mostly from the fact that the easiest way to score is asking for a connect from another user, but often those people are going to steal your money, tax your purchase, buy the cheap shit or simply not have access to good shit. Your average fentanyl user might be OK with whatever random pills they can get their hands on, but the people who've developed bigger habits are constantly chasing down the strongest fent powder they can find. Meth is a little easier because it is cheaper and people don't fiend on it quite so much so they will likely be willing to give it up easier.
Prices start to go up and quality starts to go down the very minute you step foot out of Multnomah County / City of Portland.
As for the rest of Oregon, as people have mentioned in the thread, it is mostly backwoods, podunk, redneck, druggie hating little towns outside of Bend, Eugene and Medford/Ashland (fuck Salem). All of these places are basically Large Cities and drugs can absolutely be found and acquired, but the possibility of getting fucked with by the Police definitely increases, but I couldn't say exactly how much. If you're passing thru or visiting for a few days/few weeks and are not doing stupid shit and have a vehicle that doesn't say "PULL ME OVER I'M A POOR STUPID DRUGGIE" you will not have any problems. I cannot attest to the quality or availability or ease of acquisition in these cities.
The rest of the state, you better watch your ass boy. The cops are bored as fuck, know the make model and license plate of every vehicle that is owned by a local resident and the face that should be driving it, and anyone else is automatically a target for being pulled over and fucked with if anything looks the slightest bit out of order.
There are many more nuances to the Portland metro area and its adjacent counties, all of which are quite large. Washington County/Beaverton/Hillsboro/Tigard, Clackamas County and it's outlying cities, Vancouver across the river in Washington State and even Yamhill, Columbia and Marion counties all have similar access, amounts and prices simply from being close to Portland but an entirely different approach to policing.
Hopefully this helps give an impression of what the current situation is for the state concerning "hard" drug decriminalization. There is some history of pre-decrim of the Portland drug scene I could write up if anyone cares. This whole post is fairly street drug focused, and the all-time champions of Heroin/Fentanyl and Meth but I do know a little bit about what the situation is with crack, powder cocaine, MDMA, DMT, mushrooms, etc and will write up some of that info if anyone would like to see it.
If you are looking at Oregon as a place to move so you can continue your functional addict lifestyle, I would only advise it if you have a very good skillset or are financially independent, even then it's a big gamble. The economic situation is Oregon is dire, always has been. When people post very bitter, hateful posts about their time living in Oregon after moving here for whatever reason, it hurts because I love the state, but I can absolutely understand what they are saying. Lots of history there but it's not really well known that Oregon is almost the lowest ranking state for all sorts of important measures of livability. Often below all the stereotyped Southern states and Rustbelt states. Poor and ignorant and usually with pride, but also lots of crazies, rebels, artists, hermits and a big history of very hard working, hard living type of folks.
If you want somewhere to visit for a bit so you can indulge in drugs without fear of legal entanglement, by all means visit Portland and have a plan.
If you want somewhere to be homeless, live in your unregistered, uninsured barely running vehicle, steal and scam and beg for your dope money, deal with the often seemingly unending grey skies and rain for 9 months of the year, and generally throw away anything you ever loved in the pursuit of serious drug addiction without fear of being fucked with by the cops, Portland is the place to do it. Anywhere else in the state you are going to be run out town or jailed eventually.
If you think you can pursue a serious drug addiction and maintain a semi-normal lifestyle, I have yet to see anyone manage to do it successfully. Something about street drugs just pulls you into the gutter, slowly but surely. You might be able to pull it off in Eugene or Bend, but it will be twice as expensive and harder to maintain than doing it in Portland.
Possession amounts:
- Less than 1 gram of heroin
- Less than 1 gram, or less than 5 pills, of MDMA
- Less than 2 grams of methamphetamine
- Less than 40 units of LSD
- Less than 12 grams of psilocybin
- Less than 40 units of methadone
- Less than 40 pills of oxycodone
- Less than 2 grams of cocaine
