Somewhere in Oregon, a prosecutor is sitting in a shiny new office, surrounded by fancy drug-detecting gadgets that don't work, wondering why the state's addiction crisis isn't solving itself.
As reported in The Guardian, several Oregon counties have taken $20 million meant for addiction treatment and turned it into toys for cops.
Washington County spent twice as much on police and prosecutor salaries as it did on actual treatment programs. They managed to help a whopping 75 people while filing over 1,000 drug possession cases.
Some counties went full QVC, snatching up TruNarc "spectrometers" – magical drug detecting wands, leaving taxpayers clamoring for wands that detect money their wallets. See John Oliver's take on these unnecessary gadgets.
This spending spree comes while actual treatment centers are putting people on waitlists and cutting services. At least those prosecutors will have nice, remodeled offices while watching the addiction crisis get worse.
