Treatment

Clackamas County is moving forward with a drug treatment center at the site of a former elementary school. The six-acre campus will offer detox, residential treatment beds, transitional housing and may also include medical and dental care, according to county officials.

The drug deflection center is set to open Oct. 14 in inner southeast Portland, officials announced Monday.

Oregon’s Opioid Settlement Board approved $13 million for mobile units, as well as brick and mortar facilities, that will provide access to methadone in dedicated parts of the state where that kind of medication-assisted treatment is sparse.

Counties across the state are working to establish "deflection programs," a collaboration between law enforcement agencies and behavioral health entities to get drug users into treatment, rather than the criminal justice system. In Multnomah County, the proposed plan has hit snags.

Under the pilot program that started last year, police would still issue Measure 110 tickets, and offer an immediate opportunity to connect with a treatment provider. Police and treatment workers have connected with more than 150 people during the 10 days they’ve worked together, according to Devon Downeysmith, with the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, key supporters of Measure 110.

The mobile medication pilot program will also connect people to longer-term recovery and treatment services. It’s a novel approach public safety leaders hope will help save lives amid a flood of illicit fentanyl, the latest phase of an opiate epidemic that’s surged across the country.

Several cities in Oregon’s Willamette Valley have seen excessively muddy water flowing into their drinking water systems as a result of upstream reservoirs being drained, the Salem Statesman-Journal has reported.

State auditors issued a “risk” letter flagging issues even as the drug decriminalization act’s oversight council finished approving grant applications.

A federal judge in Oregon gave the state’s psychiatric hospital until Dec. 3 to speed up admissions and increase capacity for people in the criminal justice system deemed too mentally ill to continue with their case.

The antiviral drug remdesivir is being distributed under a federal Emergency Use Authorization to treat COVID-19.