The "Right to Rest" bill is GENOCIDE for Fentanyl Addicts. Make no mistake, this is NOT a good bill designed to help "houseless" addicts. It's another term for GENOCIDE and acceptance and it is WRONG.
The danger of this delusional bill is multifaceted and REAL.
The new Right to Rest bill, proposed in the Oregon Legislature, by political newcomer Farrah Chaichi, to decriminalize all public camping would spell DISASTER to our already beleaguered Portland, Oregon.
But who is this smiley Millennial who made her campaign all about lamenting that she couldn’t find the perfect job and all those “promised opportunities” which were not given to her and were in fact “impossible” for her to attain? We’ll look into Chaichi’s limited biography, what there is of it, along with her youthful entitlement a bit later on in this essay. But first…
The Right to Rest Bill, were it to become law would cause even more crime from those squatting in the hundreds of Fentanyl Camps that dot the city. And this at a time when the sweeps, which just recently started, appear to actually be working, smartly approved by Mayor Ted Wheeler. This unwise bill, which has failed before, would result in even less commerce occurring in the city, such as restaurants and other small businesses being able to function, in and around the downtown area.
Moreover, I encourage everyone to listen to and read Mayor Wheeler’s statement, published on his YouTube page a couple of months ago. I was able to watch it only recently, but it is sane, measured, reasonable and soundly pragmatic as Wheeler shares the reality of the drug situation in Portland. One section is included below…
Making matters worse, two relatively new, cheap, and widely available synthetic drugs are wreaking havoc in Portland and across the country. The first is P2P Meth, sometimes called the “new meth.” This is insidious stuff. It can cause severe psychosis, brain damage, and anti-social behaviors including violent outbursts, destructive behavior, and extreme paranoia. Oregon has the highest meth use rates in the United States. In 2021, Meth contributed to nearly half of all homeless deaths in Multnomah County.
The second synthetic drug, Fentanyl, may be even worse, and our community is awash in it. It is cheaper and more potent than heroin. According to the Multnomah County Medical Examiner, fentanyl overdoses in Portland increased 588% over a recent two-year period. Across all age groups, Oregon’s fentanyl death rate grew by almost 500% from 2019–2021. Oregon leads the nation in the growth of youth fentanyl deaths rate, with deaths for kids ages 15–19 increasing over 900% between 2019 and 2021. Yet Oregon only has four youth treatment programs, all with months-long waiting lists.
We’ve seen the damage that fentanyl can cause. Just a few weeks ago a man intoxicated by some combination of alcohol, cannabis and fentanyl attacked a 78-year-old man and caused extensive harm as he was experiencing a mental health crisis reaction to the substances. Recently, the Portland Police and the DEA made an arrest where they confiscated 2 kilos and 30,000 fentanyl pills. According to experts, this is enough fentanyl to kill 1 million people. And it’s not even the largest amount confiscated. Eugene police recently recovered 8 kilos in a drug operation.
Part of the reason Wheeler’s statement is important is because of the specific realities and information he shares that are at the core of homelessness — being the Fentanyl crisis in Portland. These realities play a huge role in why the Right to Rest bill would be a disaster and why it must be squashed each and every time any person tries to promote it.
It is simply BAD politics and does NOT represent any kind of ‘help’ for the homeless drug addicts in Portland. To some people, like me, this proposed bill represents a kind of suggested genocide on the part of a naive newbie politician, with questionable motives.
Is this really what Farrah Chaichi thinks of homeless people, who are almost entirely Fentanyl and Super Meth addicted? Does she really think these people are just going to “rest” in their tents on the sidewalk while they prepare for a job interview at Ross Dress for Less? Is she really that naive?
Because we all know what the “Fentanyl Zombies” as they are often referred to tend to do when they’re given free tents and any kind of money. The tents are now no longer an option since Commissioner Rene Gonzalez put a stop to the city handing out free tents, but we know what addicts do when they get tents and money, don’t we?
They tend to SMOKE MORE FENTANYL.
Fent, Fenty, Fetty, Blues, Blue Diamond, Blue Dolphin, King Ivory, Snowflake, and White Girl/White ladies — the drug has many street names. And we know that addicts smoke it out in the open with no concern about risk of arrest from the police since the deplorable disaster of Measure 110 was approved by voters, which has completely failed and must be reversed.
Some addicts even blow the blue smoke at pedestrians walking by, as my ex-husband John Kennedy experienced himself in downtown Portland several times over the last 12 months. My ex-husband lives downtown in a low income apartment on the third floor of the building and has had a birds eye view of the addicts in motion. He has witnessed Fentanyl addicts rob people, threaten to stab and shoot people, including him. John has seen men in their 40’s living in filthy, sodden tents “pimp out” underage girls after getting them hooked on Fentanyl. He has seen these people, both men and women abuse small and large dogs, harass people passing by, aggressively panhandle and even try to sell Fentanyl to people of all ages, including preteens.
Is this what YOU want for YOUR loved ones? To go through more of this insanity?
Does Farrah Chaichi know any of this? Does she want to know what goes on in Fentanyl Camps or would the truth demolish her fantasy world that these homeless people are somehow sainted and otherworldly, while we who have homes are the “privileged” and undeserving ones?
What is the message that “housed” Portlanders have been getting since at least 2020?
Here, I’ll tell you. That if you have a home, you should feel guilty. That if you have a roof over your head you’re “privileged” and should just turn the other way when you see predators out committing crimes. Pimping young minor Portland girls, and boys.
Allow me to be clear, I’m not saying that all Portland’s homeless are drug addicts or criminals, just that most of them are, and that the prevailing passive-aggressive message by the vocal minority of extreme liberals is that if you’re not a wreck, and have a home, or a job, then somehow you’re a second class citizen because of that.
Let’s try this on for size, shall we? Sound familiar? Sorry, guys but YOU don’t matter. These drug addicted, mentally deranged predators, living in filthy, stinking, sodden tents matter MORE than you because they’re suffering and YOU’RE not and YOU have a home!
Sound familiar?
That was the message in 2020 and with some people, that is still the message, like a broken record, that radical activists keep spouting off.
Well, working Portland families are SICK of being told they don’t matter. They’re sick of feeling inconsequential in comparison to deranged criminals, who steal, assault, wander into occupied homes with small children, and even prostitute minor girls and boys from their Fentanyl Camps, forcing teenagers to engage in sex for money or drugs, or face beatings and rape if they don’t comply.
The vicious and ugly realities of drug addiction and homelessness are things I’m certain Farrah Chaichi knows virtually nothing about. Because she is insulated from the ugly, brutal truth. I’m not. I’m aware of what’s going on in those hellish tents and so are most Portlanders.
The downtown area is already a ghost town, what with all the closed down businesses, but this Right to Rest bill would represent the Death Knell to downtown, in totality. Businesses are abandoning ship in Portland, because of illegal camping from those squatting in the remaining Fentanyl Camps.
Owners and employees have had to throw in the towel because public safety is a thing of the past and they can’t be protected from the harassment, destruction of property and sudden and inexplicable violence coming from Fentanyl and Super Meth addicts roaming the streets and feeling emboldened by a DA who does not convict violent offenders.
Allowing more illegal camping downtown and all throughout Portland will not accomplish one positive thing other than enable more drug use among the hardcore Fentanyl and Super Meth addicts already wandering Portland streets. The Right to Rest would spell disaster for Portland and other areas in Oregon.
Probably the most ludicrous part of this proposed law would be that if a homeless person is “harassed” or asked to move, they can “sue” the person asking them to leave, or “harassing” them by asking them to leave with a $1,000 law suit, which would then be paid to the homeless person.
WHAT?
Hmmm, I wonder what a Fentanyl or Super Meth addict would spend $1,000 on if they had the opportunity? More Fentanyl, or Super Meth perhaps?
Whatcha think, Farrah?
If this absurd bill is allowed to pass, we will be right back, squarely entrenched in 2020, when the entire downtown area was swimming in illegal camping and the blatant Fentanyl use that was going on right in front of folks who were walking to work, or walking home or perhaps simply trying to shop for some food.
Disabled folks in wheel chairs were the most discriminated against, because of the Fentanyl Camps and their ever-present soggy tents, blocking their ability to traverse sidewalks. Disabled folks could not use the wheelchair access ramps or sidewalks because they were so crowded with tents, and trash, piles of excrement, buckets filled with urine and the numerous RATS that were feeding off trash and discarded food, and multiplying rapidly.
For those of you who might not know this, rats carry serious disease that can be transmitted to human beings, including The Black Plague, which still exists and didn’t die out during the Dark Ages. The Bubonic Plague started, “…because of two populations of rodents. one resistant to the disease, which acts as hosts, keeping the disease endemic; and a second that lacks resistance. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other hosts, including people, thus creating a human epidemic. The original carrier for the plague-infected fleas thought to be responsible for the Black Death was the black rat. The bacterium responsible for the Black Death, Yersinia pestis, was commonly endemic in only a few rodent species and is usually transmitted zoonotically by the rat flea.
Rats still carry the bacterium Yersinia Pestis today and people in many countries still get Bubonic Plague from black rats carrying the special fleas required to infect human beings. If you don’t think that disease from rats is not possible in Portland, or that homeless Fentanyl addicts living in unsanitary conditions does not attract rats, then you are either not paying attention or you’re in complete denial.
This is another aspect of the illegal Fentanyl Camps that Farrah Chaichi is likely not considering — the dangers of disease brought on by rats.
In California, there has been a recurring pattern of Typhus Zones popping up, as rats are spreading Typhus. The disease is spread quickly by fleas, which are carried by mice, rats, opossums and then land on pets, like a small dog walking down the street. The disease impacts homeless drug addicts and residents who live nearby, because infected FLEAS do NOT discriminate. Does Farrah Chaichi know anything about what’s happening in California with the spread of Typhus, because of homeless camps, filth, rotting food and scavenging rats? Probably not, I’d wager.
Farrah Chaichi has many of the same radical ideas that induced Chloe Eudaly, JoAnn Hardesty and others to embrace the 2020 Defund the Police ideology, which has been proven to be a nationwide failure and not just in Portland.
Probably the most destructive political move of 2020, which I’m certain someone like Chaichi cheered along, was the firing of the PPB Gun Violence Reduction Team. This led to increased shootings within five days of the unit being terminated. I remember, because I was paying attention.
Criminal justice experts within PPB tried to explain to City Council members what would happen if the GVRT was axed. Their warnings were ignored but guess what? Those at PPB were right. Everything those PPB subject matter experts warned City Hall about came true. But that’s all ancient history now, isn’t it so who cares, right?
Chaichi is simply more of the same of these trendy Millennial’s wanting to conduct dangerous social experiments that impact real people, all so she can come out looking like some saintly savior.
They ignore what science tells us about criminal causation, trends in increased shootings and murders, and what tried and true methods impact positively, those trends, pushing them back and increasing public safety. Chaichi seems to enjoy embracing “feel good” policies that are not grounded in what actually works to create social and economic equity via increased public safety. In my opinion, and many others, Social harmony begins with law and order and not the other way around.
This is what so many of these young radicals cannot seem to comprehend, or accept. Social programs, food assistance, education, and employment programs which encourage gang members and others to seek regular work, rather than criminal endeavors are all positive and necessary, but those programs will NOT dramatically impact public safety if a robust police force is not also present and functioning in the city.
Law and order must come first with intelligent, and equitable law enforcement policies and practices that have been proven to work. The people who understand this best are the experts at PPB. Not bakers, not florists, not web designers and certainly not police oversight groups, but rather the police themselves.
Make no mistake, this bill, if passed will become a form of state sponsored GENOCIDE of all Portland’s thousands of Fentanyl and Super Meth addicts. What they need is TOUGH LOVE. Either sober up with drug treatment or, if you’re that committed to your precious Fetty tinfoil, then leave town and take your mess with you.
In a CNN article, the bill sounds enlightened and even compassionate. But the quote below is misleading on many levels. Namely Farrah Chaichi is not being honest about the reality of who among the homeless are addicts. She suggests in the short quote below that people experience homelessness due to “economic hardship” or a shortage of “safe and affordable housing” or the inability to “obtain gainful employment.”
“Many persons in Oregon have experienced homelessness as a result of economic hardship, a shortage of safe and affordable housing, the inability to obtain gainful employment and a disintegrating social safety net system,” says the bill, sponsored by Rep. Farrah Chaichi, a Democrat whose district includes Beaverton, and Rep. Khanh Pham, from southeast Portland. “Decriminalization of rest allows local governments to redirect resources from local law enforcement activities to activities that address the root causes of homelessness and poverty.”
This is misleading. Chaichi fails to honestly address the real issue. That most of the homeless in Portland are drug addicts from out of state and mentally ill, as a result of Super Meth and Fentanyl. She sugarcoats the ugly reality and as far as I’m concerned, that is the same as lying.
Portlanders don’t need yet another liar politician.
On Chaichi’s website, she shares some information about her history but it is some of her language which reveals many of her expectations and youthful entitlement about life.
I am lifelong resident of Beaverton. My mother was from The Dalles and my father came from Iran. After meeting at the University of Portland and later getting married, my parents moved to Beaverton in the 80s. They raised my brother and I with the belief that we only needed to attend school, work hard, go to college, and we could get good jobs that would afford us a life like theirs. Unfortunately, the ever-growing inequality of our current system has made it impossible for myself and millions of other hard-working people to obtain those promised opportunities. When I joined Amnesty International in high school, I began to understand the depth of injustices our world faced. Because of this, I chose to study criminal justice and political science in college so I could help build a more equitable society. Later, I found that while school provides a good foundation, how to actually make political change is not something that is taught in a classroom.In 2014, I followed the example of friend s and I started attending political meetings, joined organizations, hit the pavement for candidates, protested in the streets, and was appointed to the Beaverton Human Rights Advisory Commission (HRAC). My time serving on HRAC gave me a chance to examine some of our local issues with human rights closely, but my position gave me no power to address those issues. I have life experiences that are very familiar in our community but are underrepresented in our legislature. From personal experiences with crushing student loan debt to displacement from increased housing costs, I have felt the impacts of our State’s policies that put profits over people. That’s why I’m running to be your next House District 35 Representative.
Like me, Chaichi has a Bachelor degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, but I wager her take on that discipline is quite different than my own, which I like to consider a balanced perspective and not a radical one. Unlike me I doubt that she was a double major, double minor as I was. Not that I’m boasting but still…
Farrah Chaichi Educational Background: Master Professional Studies, George Washington University; Bachelor of Arts (Criminal Justice, minor Political Science), Seattle University; Beaverton High School.
Like me Chaichi has a masters degree, which is a plus, so that’s good. But having graduated from the same high school my daughter attended for two years, I’m not going to presume her high school academic experience was that exceptional. As a parent, I had more than a little experience contending with the mediocrity of Beaverton High School. It’s certainly nothing to brag about as BHS ranks 185th out of 241 public Oregon high schools and the school was a complete disappointment for me as a parent, and for my daughter. If you want clarification on that, go to Google and research it yourself.
Farrah Chaichi would have you believe that since she’s only had a handful of mostly easy jobs, like working as a Client Intake Coordinator at Stoel Rives LLP, at Daimler Trucks; Sales/Customer Service and at the Dollar Tree that she’s like you are, that she has things in common with the public in general. But I question that.
And if Chaichi wants to compare notes, I’d be happy to share details with her regarding all the back breaking, thankless jobs I had cleaning hotel and motel rooms back in the 1990s when she was a child. I earned five dollars and fifty cents per hour, part time, all while I raised my nine-year-old daughter alone as a single mother, and prepared to begin my “Academic Career” at PCC, and PSU. At no time did I blame others for any “promised opportunities” that I’d missed or been cheated out of by society. I knew that I was primarily the one responsible for my difficult life. I certainly would not have tried to blame anyone else for my challenging circumstances, as I was taught not to share my troubles and certainly not to feel sorry for myself.
So, what exactly does Chaichi have in common with people like me?
Chaichi does not appear to be married, nor to have any children. What exactly does she have in common with people like you and me? I’m a mother, of an adult woman over the age of 30 who is not much younger than Chaichi herself. I’ve been married three times, divorced twice, survived the stress and misery of domestic violence, and have dealt with the mental illness of close family members, including the drug addiction and alcoholism of some family members as well.
So, why does Farrah Chaichi want to convince you about how much she cares? How she wants to change the world and become the new flavor of the month for Social Justice Saviors? What’s in it for her? Well, I’ll tell you.
MONEY.
Money is what compels a lot of people to enter politics. Their first task is to convince you that they’re saints, that all they really want is to make the world a better place, and fight for YOU, but isn’t it funny how much these kinds of positions pay? You have to start somewhere but each new position is a stepping stone to something better and more lucrative.
I’m certain that when the former penniless Chloe Eudaly and JoAnn Hardesty got their first checks for around $8,000 per month, they must have thought they’d died and gone to Heaven. I bet they both went on some major shopping sprees, splurging on things all women love, like perfume, cosmetics, fine clothing, silver and gold jewelry and high end skin care products. What would make Farrah Chaichi any different?
The only local politician who has no interest or need of money is Ted Wheeler. He is comfortable to a degree that he doesn’t need to worry about money, and as a result we can trust that his desire to make Portland a better place is more grounded in a genuine and sincere wish to help. But most people, including most of the people who have been in Portland politics in the last few years go into it for the high pay—for the money.
This is another reason I don’t trust Farrah Chaichi. She is a typical politician in that she’s trying to appeal to common ultra liberal ideologies in an effort to become popular in Portland with the vocal minority, but sadly, she’s failing to understand how the silent majority has changed since 2020.
Chaichi uses old worn-out rhetoric like “Your Silence is Violence.” Bullshit divisionist rhetoric which is aimed directly at white people. But what exactly does it mean? Are all white people supposed to behave in ways she deems appropriate? Are elderly white people, or disabled white people, or mentally ill white people who cannot become activists supposed to feel guilty because their “Silence” equals “violence” in some way, because they can’t become allies?
And DOES silence equal violence? Do words actually equal violence, as in physical violence? Is this really Chaichi’s perspective? I’d love to know what she actually thinks in that regard. From what I have learned, when anyone tries to alter your perspective or lived experience by saying words equal violence, or silence equals violence, censorship is what they’re really trying to force down your throat, and as a result your silence.
Would Chaichi direct this trendy statement to people of color? Black folks, perhaps? Asians? Native Americans, or is it solely to be directed at white folks? Farrah Chaichi’s political naivety is expansive and remarkable. She has failed to see how Portlanders have changed since 2020, Portlanders of all colors.
Portlanders of all colors are sick of feeling unsafe, of being victimized by crazed drug addict criminals. Portlanders are sick of people like DA Mike Schmidt allowing violent men to go free one violent crime after another, until such time that those violent men finally graduate to committing murder. This has happened three times since Schmidt took control of the DA’s office and put that office and the city of Portland into chaos and as I’ve said before and will say again, DA Mike has BLOOD on his hands.
Portlanders are sick of bad decisions like the firing of the Gun Violence Reduction Team, which devastated public safety in Portland virtually overnight, with the Hoover Gang members coming out of their hiding places to begin turf wars over where and when drug sales of Fentanyl and Super Meth can take place.
Portlanders are sick of incompetent and uneducated political leaders like Chloe Eudaly and JoAnn Hardesty, who could barely function in their roles as politicians without meltdowns, childish bulling of others and substandard interpersonal social skills, particularly with anyone who did not coddle or agree with them.
Portlanders think back to 2015 and before as the good old days, compared to now. We want that title we were so proud of for so long, to return. Do you remember it? We want to be able to say Portland is “livable” again. We don’t want a repeat of what we’ve been through already and what is still happening in Portland right now, with the shootings and the weekly murders, of mostly young black men.
This commentary might seem harsh, and I’m okay with that. I can be the Bad Guy and feel perfectly okay with that. Sometimes you have to be blunt and harsh in your appraisal of bad ideas and the deluded people who promote them. But know this — I don’t dislike Farrah Chaichi on a personal level. I don’t know her and as she’s significantly younger than I am, I do not feel in any way offended by her or her radical beliefs. She is what she is and radical extremists like her are not that hard to figure out. But I do feel obligated to honestly share why this bill is such a bad idea.
Portland does not need or want The Right to Rest Bill. Nor do we want Farrah Chaichi’s tired unbalanced political ideology, promoting useless and toxic white guilt and a radical perspective, at the expense of public safety, while also trying to convince voters that she is the next flavor of the month savior we all need.
No thanks Farrah, we’re simply not interested in what you’re selling.
~Theresa Griffin Kennedy
There is nothing new or cheap about P2P.
What is has in common - and is so attractive to the cartels - is that both fentanyl and that form of meth (P2P) are totally synthetic. No need to grow any poppies or coca leaves.
That cuts down on costs and transport a great deal and in the long run, the overall source costs.
Heroin and oxycodone require poppy and a derivative of another poppy plant called thebaine, but the three great poppy regions of the world have been the plains of Anatolia in Turkey, the Golden Triangle of southeast Asia and part of South and Central America. Coca thrives on the higher elevations of the Andes. But both require harvesting and distillation.
The attraction of fentanyl - a totally synthetic chemical was developed in the 60s for a purpose it is still very good at - medical anesthesia, usually in an operating room. Fentanyl is too strong and dangerous to be a consumer prescription drug, although it is marketed in "patches." Most of the fentanyl that is showing up in bogus oxycodone tablets made to look like an Rx drug called "Roxicodone" is in fact some literal junk mixed up with some analogue drug like Carfentanil or Alfentanil, either much stronger or not meant for humans.
P2P is the "original;" biker method of making meth, which also needs no natural plant base, but does often require reflux tubes, some knowledge of chemistry and a considerable risk of explosion, burns etc. The biker gangs moved away from P2P because pseudoephedrine was much easier to obtain and simpler to turn into what was called "Nazi meth" This derives from the official use of meth as a drug called "Pevertin" by the Germans in WW2 to keep troops pepped up. The US and Allies ALSO use - and continue to use stimulants, albeit in less spectacular forms as "go pills" like Adderall and amphetamine to keep pilots up over long flights.