"is just so prevalent and so deadly," Davis said. "Any single intervention would have to make a huge impact to reduce overdose deaths."
A major limitation of the research, though, is time. Decriminalization went into effect in 2021, and the researchers were only able to track what happened over the next year. "But rollout was very slow, and most of those funds were not released until after this study period ended," said Macmadu. For the study, Davis and his colleagues tracked fatal overdoses in the year after decriminalization in Oregon and in Washington state, which made a similar policy change around the same time that has since been rescinded.
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