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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

#51

Post by cpncrunch »

martinald wrote: post #49
cpncrunch wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

How does that work? The whole mess is because of this. Fentanyl is 100x stronger per gram than heroin. Therefore you can import 100th the quantity and still make (in theory) make similar money on the street. It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug. You will get a lighter sentence for 1g of fent vs 100g of heroin, no doubt…

>It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug.

Yeah, that's why there is pressure to increase sentences for the fentanyl dealers. If you have tougher sentences for the more dangerous drugs, it makes people more likely to use the less dangerous ones.

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

#52

Post by sumedh »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
tompazourek wrote: post #5

When I saw the chart I thought, what's wrong with Estonia?

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.

> All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction.

Why is that?

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

#53

Post by Clubber »

cpncrunch wrote: post #51
martinald wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that work? The whole mess is because of this. Fentanyl is 100x stronger per gram than heroin. Therefore you can import 100th the quantity and still make (in theory) make similar money on the street. It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug. You will get a lighter sentence for 1g of fent vs 100g of heroin, no doubt…

>It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug. Yeah, that's why there is pressure to increase sentences for the fentanyl dealers. If you have tougher sentences for the more dangerous drugs, it makes people more likely to use the less dangerous ones.

How anyone can believe that harsher sentences will curb drug use in this day and age with 50 years of evidence to the contrary is beyond me.

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

#54

Post by cvsh »

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…

>I get that some folks want to legalize drugs, but make an argument for it that doesn't involve this twisting of results to match the desired outcome.

Criminalizing drugs has negative externalities like boosting the profits of organized crime, but is often argued to outweigh those side effects by suppressing drug use, which is harmful.

If we found a way to make drug use much less harmful, then why would we not decriminalize drugs concurrently, given that its positives are negated so there's no argument remaining that they outweigh its negatives?

Even if the critical factor in reducing drug use harms was health services, the argument for concurrent decriminalization is overwhelming.

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

#55

Post by cpncrunch »

Clubber wrote: post #53
cpncrunch wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug. Yeah, that's why there is pressure to increase sentences for the fentanyl dealers. If you have tougher sentences for the more dangerous drugs, it makes people more likely to use the less dangerous ones.

How anyone can believe that harsher sentences will curb drug use in this day and age with 50 years of evidence to the contrary is beyond me.

You're probably right. However the other question is whether dealers should be help criminally liable for fentanyl-related deaths. In essence they are selling something that they know will likely kill some of their customers.

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

#56

Post by mythrwy »

JamesBarney wrote: post #47
mythrwy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I generally agree with most of what you state I'd like to offer the unpopular opinion that the personal decision to use hard or addicting drugs is something of a moral failing. Not that there aren't extenuating circumstances, not that it's a "terrible crime", but, it is a vice in which people for the most part, at least initially, have some choice. Again, I'm in favor of most everything you suggest, particularl…

You must being living in a very different community than mine. I live in Texas and being a heroin/cocaine/alcohol/nicotine(not as much) addict is a shameful thing. Yet we still have quiet the drug problem. I've only known a few people who fell down the deadly spiral of drug abuse. But each one hid their addiction because of shame until it was so terrible they couldn't. And I believe if it had been less shameful they…

I live close enough and here's my observation.

There is a very large subgroup that doesn't regard these things as shameful. This often becomes the main group of people involved with drugs. And it keeps sucking them back in, sometimes when they would otherwise get and this is exactly the problem I'm talking about.

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

#57

Post by MadSax »

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.

Herbs should be treated like speech, freely available with education and stipulation that they be used wisely.

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

#58

Post by chrisbennet »

shawnee_ wrote: post #27

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 t…

The true reason for the war on drugs was to be able to attack blacks and anti-war demonstrators, according to Nixon' domestic policy advisor:

At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

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

#59

Post by PrimalDual »

mythrwy wrote: post #32
shawnee_ wrote: post #27

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 t…

While I generally agree with most of what you state I'd like to offer the unpopular opinion that the personal decision to use hard or addicting drugs is something of a moral failing. Not that there aren't extenuating circumstances, not that it's a "terrible crime", but, it is a vice in which people for the most part, at least initially, have some choice. Again, I'm in favor of most everything you suggest, particularl…

I have been thinking along the same lines lately. Issues like addiction and poverty are complex, multicausal and cannot objectively be blamed solely on the individual. Still, we have to consider what a person needs to believe in order to act in their best interests. I cannot imagine a situation where someone overcomes addiction or poverty with a victim mindset. Ultimately, you have to believe you are still in control to some degree even if it's only enough to accept help. Social mechanisms like shaming seem useful as a reminder that regardless of your state you are still responsible for yourself. I understand vulnerable people like addicts need help but I don't think always seeing them as victims of circumstances is the right approach.

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

#60

Post by lucaspiller »

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 was suprised to see Lithuania so high on the list, as I didn't really think drugs were that common here. However we also have one of the highest suicide rates in the EU, so maybe ODing is a popular way to go...
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