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Notes -
I was hyped about it myself, even though I had read in enough detail about Portugal as an analogue to have some concerns.
I was also concerned about the location of running the experiment. I wasn't familiar with Portugal's drug culture prior to its efforts, but I am at least passingly familiar with the culture of drug use on the west coast and its role as a haven. Even if Portland's weather is terrible in comparison to San Diego, they were starting off the bat with lax policing and a permissive populace. The referendum was putting in writing what was really already going on.
Was 4 years long enough to run this experiment? Could it have performed better in a more neutral territory to remove some confounding variables?
I thought the same thing too until I saw that Oregon's overdose rate was among the lowest in the country at time the law was enacted and continues to be relatively low even after the recent spike. West Virginia has the worst rate in the country and it saw a similar doubling over roughly the same period, and that isn't exactly a lax jurisdiction. I wonder how much of the surge is simply due to an unusually low base rate in an area where you'd expect it to be higher.
What are the numerator and denominator in the overdose rate?
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