Maxine Dexter: “I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I rise to strongly support this amendment. If we want to save lives, if that…”

“I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I rise to strongly support this amendment. If we want to save lives, if that is truly what we are all here to do, let's make sure that is the outcome before we move forward. As I stated, I am a physician. I am a lung doctor. I have taken care of people with addiction for 20 years. I know, Mr. Speaker, that people have to fail before they succeed most times when they struggle with addiction. Criminalizing all use of fentanyl derivatives means that people will be driven into the shadows because they fear going to jail should they have an addiction. This is a chronic disease. If we believe criminalization is the path to helping save lives, I want to see that because that has not been our experience in Oregon where it has been nationally recognized that we have struggled. The other point I will make is that the scheduling of all fentanyl derivatives ties our hands. We cannot develop treatments that are derivatives of fentanyl if we criminalize all fentanyl-related derivatives. Mr. Speaker, not only do we deny ourselves the opportunity for treatment upstream, but downstream, we criminalize people into the shadows where they are more likely to die of overdose.”