ON APRIL 16 at the Portland Business Alliance’s (PBA) annual summit on downtown crime, Police Chief Mike Reese reeled off an eye-popping statistic: Some 70 percent of arrestees at Multnomah County jail “had drugs on board.” Just exactly what kind of drugs? Reese didn’t specify.

But perhaps more surprising was the revelation that male inmates had been drug tested in the first place.

American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon lobbyist Becky Straus said she hadn’t heard of the program before the Mercury called. Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch also admitted that the Mercury’s call was the first time he’d learned about drug testing at the jail—which first started in the late ’80s.

“It’s mind-boggling this has been going on for years,” says Handelman, “and nobody seems to know about it.”

If not for Reese’s mention, the largest drug-testing program you’ve never heard of might have remained unnoticed.

In March, Multnomah County got word that they would no longer be participating in the federally administered program, currently known as the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program (or ADAM II). The program tested arrestees across the country for more than two decades. But this year, the feds slashed funding, reducing its test cities from 10 to 5; Portland didn’t make the cut.

However as of fall 2011, federal agents tested arrestees at Multnomah County’s main jail twice a year for drugs ranging from pot to opiates. The program, which tests arrestees anonymously, is also supposed to be voluntary—which could be one reason why it operated so long without attracting attention from civil libertarians.

Straus said she didn’t know enough about ADAM II to comment on any concerns. Handelman, however, says he’s skeptical about just how voluntary the program was—expressing concern that many arrestees might not understand their rights.

Confronted with those concerns, Drew Brosh, chief deputy of the county sheriff’s office, told the Mercury that the program didn’t violate anyone’s civil rights. Brosh, who directly oversaw the program from 2006 to 2008, pointed to the fact that ADAM II hasn’t received a single legal challenge. As to how many arrestees opted out of the program, Brosh said he didn’t know, and ADAM II doesn’t seem to keep these numbers either.

The one thing ADAM II did do was gather a lot of data about drug use among some arrestees.

Reese, when speaking at the PBA’s summit, spent a portion of his remarks decrying a “growing social disorder downtown,” driven, he said, by homelessness and drug addiction. His comments followed a story in the Oregonian about a surge in both heroin supplies and heroin-related deaths. But while Reese didn’t bother to distinguish between the types of drugs arrestees had “on board,” ADAM II records do.

The most popular drug was—by far—marijuana. From 2007 to 2010 (full records for 2011 aren’t available), about 40 percent of arrestees tested positive for pot. Cocaine turned up in 24 percent of arrestees in 2007, dropping to only 14 percent by 2010. During that same period, meth was present in only 18 percent of arrestees.

Sergeant Pete Simpson, a Portland police spokesman, wouldn’t say his boss overstated the concern about drug addiction, insisting pot’s not as harmless as people think: “What we don’t want to do is minimize the role any drug might play on influencing behavior.”

But ADAM II records also back up, to a degree, some concerns about heroin. Opiate use doubled among arrestees between 2009 and 2010, rising from 11.4 percent to 22.6 percent—with the majority of that likely being heroin. Health officials and cops say heroin addiction is driven by the easy availability of opiate-based painkillers.

As for ADAM II itself? Brosh says there’s no sign that funding for the program will come back anytime soon. And if it does, you probably won’t hear about it.

Update:This story has been changed to clarify that only male arrestees were tested for drugs.

16 replies on “Marijuana “On Board””

  1. Does this count for the fact that THC can stay in the system for almost a month, whereas most other substances of abuse are flushed out in hours or days? Does it count for the fact that MJ is substantially more widely available in general?

    As a former bus driver, my main complaint about pot is that I wish people would shower and double bag if they plan to use public transit. That’s a pretty minor complaint compared to my feelings on Crack users and “Meth Heads”, or the people who pass out from opiates. In fact, it’s pretty minor compared to the smokers who start to get on the bus with a lit cig, or the many MANY people who try to sneak open alcohol on the bus (if you feel the need to drink on a bus, I would suggest that City Hall is a nice warm place that is actually less illegal to drink in – right, like your reading this). So I’m not so sure we need to be worried about the amount of MJ in our criminal justice system.

  4. Figures are hardly surprising, given the millions of people that smoke weed in the US and the fact it stays in your system for a month. You pretty much have to be ON drugs when you test positive for the other ones.

  5. I thought when you were incarcerated, you LOSE your rights? So, we’re supposed to feel sorry for inmates being tested (voluntarily) for drugs twice a year? I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that? What’s next Mercury? A story about how prisoners have lost their rights to travel where they want to, cross state lines or go overseas? Oh my god! Prisoners are not allowed to leave the jail! It’s a violation of their civil rights! I don’t really mind if prisoners get tested for drugs while INCARCERATED. Sheesh.

  6. Here, here for ^Captain Fascist^ whose’s under the very strange and utterly bizzarro world presumption that you AUTOMATICALLY lose all rights just b/c you get incarcerated, and that drug-testing in jails really is “voluntary”.

    I suppose he’s also totally fine with the fact that inmates are routinely raped – sometimes by guards – that even in the booking process, arrestees are often beaten and maimed. Sometimes, killed.

  7. Whoa Dapoo-poo… what kind of mind goes from “This guy is pro-drug testing in jails” to “this guy loves prison rape”? You’re a sick puppy, man.
    So, explain to me what the solution is to the illegal drug trade in prisons and jails? You know there’s drugs behind bars, you know some of these inmates get violent while on drugs. Just like out of jail, once some of these prisoners are under the influence of an intoxicant, they become violent. So, how does the jail or prison enforce THE LAW? THE LAW says drugs are illegal. THE LAW says that drugs are illegal in prison or jail. How do we solve the problem, hippie? I bet you the most violent murderer meth head doesn’t even know there are idiots like you out here defending his drug use. Do you think he’d thank you? What would you say if he needed a place to crash for the week? Would you open your door to him? No, you wouldn’t. Hippies like you, who defend criminals illegally using drugs in prison or jails, would shit your pants if you came face to face with said drug users. Why don’t you go fuck a rainbow, you damn hippie.

  8. Hey Cpt. Amigo, make up your stupid little pea-brained mind.

    Am i an “idiot”, or a “hippie” (no, “both” is not acceptable)?

    You try and get back to me on that, and i’ll see if i can give you an answer that just might blow your mind in it’s simplicity.

  16. One point for the Cap’n:

    Arrestees sometimes—shock!—aren’t guilty of a crime. That gets found out later, in a courtroom. So, um, they do get to have things like, um, civil rights.

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