Oregon’s decriminalization disaster, DeSantis’ debate game plan and other commentary
Drug desk: Oregon’s Decriminalization Disaster
Since Oregon’s “radical drug-decriminalization” Measure 110 passed in 2020, notes Ryan Mills at National Review, “drug-overdose deaths have skyrocketed in the state, as squalid homeless camps have proliferated in Portland and beyond.” Now that Oregon leads “the nation in the percent of its population that misuses prescription opioids (4.46 percent) and uses meth (1.93 percent),” the same liberal voters are aiming to build “a consensus opposed to Measure 110 through a ‘federalist’ approach they can spur statewide change” and “even progressive Oregonians are ready to rethink drug decriminalization” though “the state’s Democratic leaders have been unwilling, so far, to make substantial changes.”
Iconoclast: Mutilation Is Not Care
“Trans mastectomies are the lobotomies of our time,” procedures “future generations will surely balk at,” argues Brendan O’Neill at The Spectator. It’s horrific that eradicating healthy body parts is called “gender-affirming care.” Critics get “branded evil ‘culture warriors,’ while those who pathologize puberty and cheer the binding or removal of breasts are apparently good, decent people.” Yet even consent from the patient “is not a justification for medical intervention,” as “no surgeon should do harmful things to us just because we give consent.” Detransitioners like Chloe Cole are giving voice to the devastating impact of this irreversible choice. America “should not green-light . . . bodily mutilation as a cure for identity crisis. Let girls be girls, and boys be boys; put away the drugs and scalpels.”
Libertarian: Missing Students Mystery
In 2020, an estimated “3 million students nationwide went missing from classrooms,” frets Reason’s Emma Camp. Many haven’t returned since or registered for homeschooling, and “no one knows exactly how to get them back,” though “the government is now designing new interventions to try to keep these students from going uneducated.” One idea: personal visits. “In 2021, Connecticut unveiled a program that sent trained visitors to the homes of more than 8,000 students” to build trust and discuss the value of education. “Nine months after their first visit, students in grades 6-12 served by the program had a 16-point increase in their attendance rates compared to chronically absent students who weren’t visited.”
Eye on 2024: DeSantis’ Debate Game Plan
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “allies are banking on the governor to perform well at the first Republican primary debate of the year later this month as his presidential campaign shows signs of struggling” in its effort to close the gap with ex-President Donald Trump, reports The Hill’s Julia Manchester. “It’s unclear whether . . . Trump, who is dominating the GOP primary field in the polls, will attend the debate,” and “DeSantis’s allies expect him to face attacks from the rest of the GOP field gunning for second place,” but he’s “working with veteran debate coach Brett O’Donnell and . . . holding question-and-answer sessions at least once a week.” It seems DeSantis’ “campaign thinks of the debate as a win-win situation regardless of whether Trump is on stage, noting that Trump will look weak if he doesn’t attend and voters will be able to see the contrast between the two if he does.”
Crime expert: Behind the COVID Murder Spike
Overall violent crime dropped during the pandemic, yet “murders increased significantly,” observes criminal-justice prof Barry Latzer at The Wall Street Journal. Why? “Big cities, guns and young black men”: In 2020, guns caused 79% of murders, “and 6 out of 10 firearm homicides occurred in large metropolitan areas.” Race and age also played a major role: Amid major de-policing, black males 25 to 44 saw firearm death rates of 91 per 100,000 in 2020, a 36% jump over 2019. That fell to 53 per 100,000 in 2021, still five times the rate for whites and 35 times for Asian Americans, which “is attributable to a subculture of violence among low-income male African-Americans,” adopted from a 19th-century Southern white “honor” subculture and brought north with the Great Migration.
Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
