Organizers of an addiction recovery walk are pushing Oregon's leaders to act on treatment, while welcoming hundreds of people in Portland to gather for support.
On Saturday morning, September 24, the advocacy group Oregon Recovers is hosting its 5th annual Walk 4 Recovery in Portland. This is the organization's largest annual fundraiser as they work to build community power and promote pride in recovery, staff explained.
"Those of us in recovery who have the privilege to lift our voices up and say we as a state have got to do better, we have got to meet the needs of the people suffering from the disease of addiction – this is an opportunity to do that," said Mike Marshall, Oregon Recovers' executive director. "My recovery is the thing I’m most proud of in life. Because I work damn hard for it. I think most people in recovery feel that way. So the ability to be out and celebrate is really important."
Marshall told KATU he has been in long-term addiction recovery for more than 14 years.
“My recovery date is January 28, 2008," Marshall said. "Addiction is so stigmatized. To see people celebrate recovery, it’s just a huge burst and renewal and it strengthens my recovery so much."
Register for the 2022 Walk 4 Recovery: CLICK HERE
This year, Oregon Recovers is hosting five different walks across the state of Oregon. They already hosted a walk in Eugene, with future walks scheduled in Portland, Medford, Klamath Falls, and Pendleton. The Portland walk, scheduled for Saturday, will follow a 1.8-mile loop, starting in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland, as the group walks to end Oregon’s addiction crisis.
An Oregon Health Authority analysis released in July found that drug overdose deaths in Oregon more than doubled between 2019 and 2021, driven largely by misuse of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
In a push to get addiction recovery treatment organizations more funding, Oregon voters overwhelmingly voted 'yes' on Measure 110 in November 2020 to decriminalize the use of small amounts of hard drugs and open up money for addiction treatment. Backers of the ballot measure hailed it as a revolutionary move for the United States. Two years later, those same supporters are pleading for patience while high-profile critics and opponents are already wanting to repeal the law.
As part of its directive, a newly-formed Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council was tasked with accepting applications for a network of recovery centers and treatment organizations statewide. The council was was tasked with determining how the grant funds would be distributed. But efforts to get the millions of dollars in funding to statewide treatment centers and related services as part of Oregon's pioneering drug decriminalization measure had been moving slower than state officials and addiction recovery advocates had hoped and anticipated, as drug addictions and overdoses increased statewide.
After plodding through what has been described as a slow process by the Oregon Health Authority, the council finally approved the 36th and final Oregon county for drug treatment and recovery services funding in late August.
An analysis of federal data, in the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, shows that Oregon ranks 2nd for the highest addiction rates in the country while ranking 50th in access to addiction treatment.
It's why Marshall says these walks can be both a community support group and a political rally.
"In past years, we’ve had signs that people held up that say, ‘TAKE ACTION.’ So I think it’s a combination of both," Marshall said. "It is equal parts community building and pride and combatting the stigma of addiction. And it is advocating for a wholesale systems change."