People caught in possession of hard drugs will once again be at risk of state criminal penalties after the state of Oregon opted to recriminalize possession of drugs such as fentanyl, heroin and meth.

Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs in response to a 2020 ballot measure, but it will now recriminalize those offenses under a new law that takes effect Sunday.

The new law, HB4002, will give those caught with small amounts of hard drugs such as fentanyl, heroin, and meth the ability to choose between a charge of possession or treatment programs that would include being mandated to complete a behavior health program to avoid fines.

CASEY TIED TO CHINESE FIRM HE CLAIMED MCCORMICK-LED COMPANY INVESTED IN TO ‘PROFIT’ OFF FENTANYL CRISIS

A personal-use possession will be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, while the law encourages, but does not mandate, counties in the state to set up treatment alternatives to divert offenders away from the criminal justice system.

According to the report, the new law will now make it easier for police to crack down on drug use in public, a problem that has become widespread in some parts of the state over the last few years. The law also introduces stiffer penalties for selling drugs in public places, such as near parks.

Offenders who choose treatment programs will have to meet strict eligibility criteria to avoid charges, Portland police chief Bob Day told the Guardian, mandating that those caught in possession have "no other charges, no warrants, no violent behavior, medically stable."

OVER 2,000 POUNDS OF METH SMUGGLED IN CELERY AT ATLANTA FARMERS' MARKET

If someone caught in possession of hard drugs chooses and is eligible to participate in a deflection program, officers will call their county's deflection dispatch line and connect to a mobile behavioral health outreach team.

"If the behavioral health people cannot be there within 30 minutes, we’re going to go to jail. We’re not able to just wait around," Day said. "There is certainly a lack of equity in that. But I would argue that it’s not necessarily common. I’m not saying it’s right."

Nevertheless, detractors of the new law have argued that it is too complicated, noting that every county will have different resources and rules that could confuse drug users who face possible criminal penalties.

The report notes that 28 of the state's 36 counties have so far applied for grants to fund deflection programs, with more than $20 million in grants set to be released by the state's criminal justice commission in the next year.

"It’s going to be this very complicated system, where essentially people who use drugs won’t know their rights and what to expect, because it’s different in every single county," Kellen Russoniello, the director of public health at the Drug Policy Alliance, told the Guardian. "Whether or not you are connected to services or you are just churned through the system will depend very heavily on where you happen to be in the state."

Others, such as Democratic state representative Jason Kropf, a supporter of the law, expressed optimism about the new direction for the state.

"I have optimism, and I have hope," Kropf told the Guardian. "I’m also realistic that we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s endorsement of former President Donald Trump is a marvel to behold. It is astonishing that such a prominent member of America’s quintessential Democrat family embraced the most conservative Republican nominee since President Ronald Reagan.

If a majority of Kennedy’s roughly 6% of likely voters support Trump on November 5, they could compose the 3.1% that he might need to edge Vice President Kamala Harris in a photo finish. But Kennedy should add value beyond Election Day. If re-elected, Trump should ask him to chair a new Presidential Commission to Make Free Speech Great Again.

RFK JR.: TREATMENT OF ASSANGE WAS A SHAMEFUL STAIN ON OUR FIRST AMENDMENT

Kennedy and his commissioners should investigate federal assaults on the First Amendment, most notoriously the election-interference campaign to censor news coverage of Hunter Biden’s Laptop from Hell.

"The FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R – Ohio) on Monday. After the Oct. 14, 2020 story in the New York Post exposed Hunter Biden’s laptop and its evidence of the Bidens’ dodgy international deals, "we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story."

After conferring with then-Biden-Harris campaign aide Antony Blinken (now secretary of state), former acting CIA chief Michael Morrell recruited 50 other former intelligence officer to sign an open letter that dismissed the Post’s exclusive for containing "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Biden-Harris’ allies and other Deep State denizens used the ex-spies’ communiqué to dragoon Facebook, Twitter (now X), and other social-media giants into censoring the Hunter Biden story. In fact, Twitter (pre-Elon Musk) padlocked the Post’s account for 15 days!

Meanwhile, during his final debate against Trump that Oct. 22, Joe Biden used the ex-spies’ bogus letter to denounce the Post’s true story as "a bunch of garbage."

Mission accomplished! Millions of voters never learned about the Biden family’s corruption that haunted Hunter Biden’s laptop. Within days, Crooked Joe captured the Oval Office.2

"In 2021," Zuckerberg added, "senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree."

Biden-Harris’s Justice Department sicced the FBI on "domestic terrorists," specifically parents who complained to school boards about Critical Race Theory and radical transgender treatment of minors. The Administration proposed that a Disinformation Governance Board patrol the Internet for undesirable "misinformation" and then deplatform and punish Biden-Harris’s detractors.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

While public ridicule doomed the DGB, Biden-Harris reportedly still coerce tech giants to silence the administration’s critics. Biden-Harris’ FBI also spied on "violent extremists," namely Latin-Mass Catholics.

These unconstitutional policies also oppressed Kennedy. As the pandemic roared on, his concerns about COVID-19 vaccines got buried.

"What alarms me is the resort to censorship, media control, and weaponization of the federal agencies," Kennedy said in Phoenix on Aug. 23, as he suspended his campaign. "When a U.S. president colludes with, or outright coerces, media companies to censor political speech, it’s an attack on our most sacred right of free expression."

As a victim of Biden-Harris’ censorship, Kennedy is ideally suited to investigate their War on the First Amendment. The Kennedy Commission should identify every federal employee who perpetrated these unconstitutional outrages. Trump then should tell these totalitarians: "You’re fired!" The attorneys among them should be disbarred and their law licenses shredded. Those who violated federal law should be prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.

And on Day One, Trump should revoke the security clearances of those 51 lying ex-spies. This would signal — big league — that censorship is dead, and free speech is alive and well.

What a beautiful, bipartisan victory this would be for America, courtesy of Democrat Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Republican Donald J. Trump.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM DEROY MURDOCK