BUS DRUGS IN PORTLAND OREGON ‘DRUG DOME?’

Bus drugs, train drugs, and airplane drugs are a voluntary thing.

Traditionally.

Score a bag, hide it away in the last place any normal person would ever look, and be on your way.

But not in Portland? Because Portland is soooo different?

The findings from the University of Washington suggest that today’s motivated drug addict procures their magic powder on the bus, the train, or plane, and dials it up right there.

Or they bring it with them and use public transportation as a drug safe-house.

“But Dave, aren’t you an elderly retired suburban baby boomer blogger yelling at people to get off your lawn? What do you know about TriMet?”

Everything I know about public transportation comes from three years on subway trains like the Broad Street line in Philadelphia and the RR in Brooklyn.

Yes, that wa the 70’s. Just me. No wife, no kids.

I rode a bike in NW Portland during the 80’s.

Then I got married, had kids, and moved to the safety of the suburbs. Sound familiar?

Out here everyone is from someplace else. At least that’s the initial feeling.

But scratch under the suburban surface and you find people who’ve lived in town for generations and never trek to the big, evil, stinky, and now a ‘Drug Dome’ city.

Who said Drug Dome. Louder?

DRUG DOME.

It’s either a granite outcropping for rock climbers looking for more interesting ways to die, or a new term I just coined.

Remember when ‘Heat Dome’ was new?

Not a ‘heat wave’ but a heat dome.

Not a ‘drug wave’ but a ‘drug dome?’

Bus Drugs And Seating On #12

In the 90’s I rode the #12 from the downtown bus mall, to Barbur Transit, to Hall Blvd.

Then I walked uphill in the dark and rain along a road with no sidewalks. We were a one-car family.

Was I safer than I would be now sitting in bus drugs?

Over the years I’ve had moments related to the bus. And the bus stop.

I met a young professional lady on the bus who got off at the transit center and drove home.

She asked me if I’d like a ride since she lived near by. Yes, and like a good husband I immediately introduced her to my wife.

It was a good routine.

We stood together on the bus then got in her car and started stopping at the Fireside for a drink on the way home.

On one crowded trip she said, “This feels like one hot, long, slow dance,” and started swaying with the ride from the high pole. “We’re gonna need a drink after this.”

It was so funny I had to tell my wife.

We bought a second car a month later.

Transportation For The Public

I’ve sat shoulder to shoulder, stood front to back, on public transportation.

My wife and I have flown in, Maxed out to Beaverton, and Ubered from there.

Got on the train, got off the train.

That’s all I ever asked for.

And running on time. I asked for that, too.

No one asks for meth unless they’re in the lifestyle.

Apparently you don’t ask for it when you age-out of the lifestyle.

In between those two dates, try and keep bus drugs off the bus. And the train.

There’s already enough danger and temptation.