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14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

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Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#21

Post by seanhandley »

Radle wrote: post #13
lmickh wrote: post #12

Find it misleading that almost all of the recent articles on this subject talk about decriminalization as the cause for the drop in drug related health issues. They shifted a significant chunk of money to health services. If it proves anything, it is only that health services can reduce drug related health issues. Without a control, there is nothing to point to regarding criminalization vs decriminalization. People a…

Well, but it clearly shows that making drugs illegal, does not help at all to keep people save.

What about all the criminals that can no longer make money selling on the black market? Killing unregulated production allows for cleaner, safer substances to be created with known strength and purity.

After decades of prohibition, we can conclude the "War On Drugs" is a lost cause and people will always seek out drugs. If people are going to take drugs regardless, let's make sure they're clean and the profits of sale don't fund criminal gangs.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#22

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

monksy wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction. They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent.

Romania did better than Portugal. What are they doing better than Portugal? Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list? (I'm not saying that it's a bad policy but why is the article focused on pushing that policy?) Also what I want to see: What about Portugal makes it work? Could you test that assertion against a different country if you made the contextual changes…

I think you missed the point of jacquesm's comment: "They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent."

In other words, it's highly likely that Romania didn't "do better" than Portugal, but rather they're doing a very poor job tracking overdoses at all.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#23

Post by bdamm »

anigbrowl wrote: post #15
lmickh wrote: post #12

Find it misleading that almost all of the recent articles on this subject talk about decriminalization as the cause for the drop in drug related health issues. They shifted a significant chunk of money to health services. If it proves anything, it is only that health services can reduce drug related health issues. Without a control, there is nothing to point to regarding criminalization vs decriminalization. People a…

They shifted a significant chunk of money to health services. But everyone knows this, it's the obvious corollary of decriminalization and has been stated over and over.

How? It's entirely possible to decriminalize and simply move law enforcement monies to other efforts, leaving nothing for health services.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#24

Post by cpncrunch »

In Canada we seem to have de-facto criminalization for possession for personal use. The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl.

Not sure what the solution is, but perhaps a combination of stronger penalties for dealers, more resources for treating addiction, and legalising weed.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#25

Post by anigbrowl »

bdamm wrote: post #23
anigbrowl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shifted a significant chunk of money to health services. But everyone knows this, it's the obvious corollary of decriminalization and has been stated over and over.

How? It's entirely possible to decriminalize and simply move law enforcement monies to other efforts, leaving nothing for health services.

Why do you think that is relevant to anything since it's not what actually happened? It seems like you want all the content of every article shoehorned into the few words of the headline. That's not going to happen.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#26

Post by libertine »

lmickh wrote: post #12

Find it misleading that almost all of the recent articles on this subject talk about decriminalization as the cause for the drop in drug related health issues. They shifted a significant chunk of money to health services. If it proves anything, it is only that health services can reduce drug related health issues. Without a control, there is nothing to point to regarding criminalization vs decriminalization. People a…

You've got a point there.

I think one of the main things is that people stopped being considered criminals to being considered "sick" - they have addiction, they need help, so they require health care.

If the police catches you with weed - you'll need to go psychological counseling for example.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#27

Post by shawnee_ »

Portugal's performance in perspective: Only three people for every million die of a drug overdose in Portugal, which puts one of the eurozone's poorest countries in a different league than rich international powerhouse Germany (17.6 per million) and in a different universe than social democratic utopia Sweden (69.7 per million).

There's a fascinating documentary called American Addict on what nearly happened before this happened:

"In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. He proclaimed, “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive(Sharp, 1994, p.1).” Nixon fought drug abuse on both the supply and demand fronts." [source]

Before criminalization, the trend in society was to start treating people who are afflicted with addictions like the sick people they are, rather than like criminals. There was an entire movement toward recovery as a necessary way of life for some people who cannot moderate alcohol intake (or drugs or whatever), just like insulin is a way of life for diabetics whose pancreases can't moderate insulin.

Addiction is not a moral issue; it should not be criminalized. It is a medical issue. It is a mental health issue. When it's caught early enough, and treated with the proper mental health regimen, it does not have to be debilitating.

Instead, what happened with war on drugs was mass-market criminalization... essentially forcing alcoholics and addicts forced into debilitation (hiding / shame)... leading to further desire for escapism through the addiction. It's a terrible cycle, and the worst part of it is that some counties have made things like DUIs into their bread-and-butter mainstream source of revenue.

It's hard to say what the trend today is going toward. The privatization of jails is especially disconcerting; like society wants to trick itself into thinking that the more people it has locked up the "safer" it is.

[source]http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/parado...

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#28

Post by wavegeek »

cpncrunch wrote: post #24

In Canada we seem to have de-facto criminalization for possession for personal use. The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl. Not sure what the solution is, but perhaps a combination of stronger penalties for dealers, more resources for treating addiction, and legalis…

> The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl.

When you give criminals a monopoly on the supply of recreational drugs, it is predicable that quality will be a problem. Potencies will vary, purity will suffer.

The solution is legalization combined with more health measures.

> stronger penalties

How anyone can think that stronger penalties are going to solve the problem escapes me. We have the evidence of 75 years of unrelieved failure of a punitive approach. This is an example of "If something fails, do more of it - That Might Work!".

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#29

Post by rosser »

untangle wrote: post #9

The singular focus on "drug deaths due to overdose" tells an important part of the story, but not the whole story. For example, per Wikipedia, drug use may have doubled after decriminalization.* If so, that's an acceptable tradeoff to me but may not be to others. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

I believe, though am not in a position to dig up a citation right now, that the spike in drug use you're referencing was also temporary, and that usage rates fell significantly, to well below the "baseline" level after that.

Assuming that's true, pointing out the spike, without also mentioning the drop is — at best — ignorant, if not deceitful.

Re: 14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off

#30

Post by cpncrunch »

wavegeek wrote: post #28
cpncrunch wrote: post #24

In Canada we seem to have de-facto criminalization for possession for personal use. The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl. Not sure what the solution is, but perhaps a combination of stronger penalties for dealers, more resources for treating addiction, and legalis…

> The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl. When you give criminals a monopoly on the supply of recreational drugs, it is predicable that quality will be a problem. Potencies will vary, purity will suffer. The solution is legalization combined with more health measure…

>How anyone can think that stronger penalties are going to solve the problem escapes me

I was referring to Fentanyl-laced heroin.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fentanyl-traf...

It most certainly does make sense to have stronger penalties for dealing drugs that have a high chance of killing people due to being laced with fentanyl. Otherwise it's like having the same penalty for a shoplifter as for an armed robber.

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