This is WAY too early to tell. They were decriminalized less than two years ago! That's less time than most of the convictions in question would have taken!
In comparison, it took nearly 20 years for the opioid crisis to develop!
> While overdoses didn’t go up in those states because of decriminalization, they still went up. Oregon’s went from 18.7 per 100,000 people to 26.8 per 100,000 people while Washington went from 22 per 100,000 people to 28.1 per 100,000 people in 2020 and 2021, respectively. But the study compared the states’ increases with a control group made up of data from similar states that didn’t decriminalize drugs and found that the differences weren’t statistically significant.
This also isn't the most confidence inspiring data. "ODs are way up, but they are way up everywhere". Keep in mind that the sort of possession that has been decriminalized may often be de facto decriminalized in many parts of the country - the vast majority of drug users need not worry about prosecution.
But again, I wouldn't expect to see significant changes for a decade or more. The legal system is pretty slow. If people are going to start changing their behavior in response to changes in the law, you would have to follow a few generations of addiction and recovery programs to start to see people actually respond to them.
