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Bills Gov. Tina Kotek signed last week should help Oregonians with substance abuse and addiction. They don’t correct fundamental problems with Measure 110.

Senate Bill 238 requires that a curriculum be developed for schools on the dangers of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

Senate Bill 1043 requires hospitals and other medical facilities to provide some patients upon release with two doses of an opioid reversal medication, such as Narcan and naloxone.

House Bill 2395 gives more access to those same medications to emergency personnel and also people who work in schools. It grants liability protection. It also requires parents be informed if school officials do administer an opioid reverser to their child.

House Bill 2513 is aimed at improving getting treatment dollars out the door.

Those are generally good bills. It’s just that they don’t make the problems built into Measure 110 go away.

Unintentional opioid overdoses in Oregon have gone up steadily. There were 280 deaths in 2019, 472 deaths in 2020, 745 in 2021 and 934 in 2022.

The blame for that increase is not Measure 110 all by itself. But consider just one aspect of the measure. It made drug possession a violation with essentially no repercussions. It’s a $100 fine. No jail. No supervision. No other criminal penalties. And a person getting a ticket can do nothing after getting the ticket and without any legal fallout.

Give Measure 110 more time. It wasn’t going to change things overnight.

More treatment is available now. Those are the arguments people make in defense of Measure 110. But just like the bills Kotek signed last week, they don’t fix fundamental problems with Measure 110.