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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

#61

Post by thatswrong0 »

seanhandley wrote: post #21
Radle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sal…

Exactly.

Beyond removing the criminal element, the fentanyl epidemic should make the destructive nature of our current policy so obvious as to warrant the complete legalization (and regulation) of heroin. People are dying at incredibly high rates because they are not getting pure substances - they are receiving substances cut with something that can kill at tiny doses. Not only do heroin addicts have to deal with heroin overdoses (which are still quite possible), but they have to deal with fentanyl overdoses. Every time they use unregulated product, they are gambling with their lives. Our drug policy in America is completely ignorant of this reality.

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

#62

Post by cpncrunch »

ridgeguy wrote: post #50
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…

This a predictable consequence of heroin's illegal status. It's a shift by vendors to higher value density materials. During U.S. prohibition, vendors replaced illegal beer with gin, moonshine, etc. (higher alcohol/mass and alcohol/volume = smaller shipment volume and probability of detection). Later, weed fell in favor to hash for similar reasons. Now we have heroin being potentiated with fentanyl and its derivative…

>heroin's illegal status....legalization is required for reduction of overdose rates

That will only work with supervised injection. Otherwise there will still be overdoses (albeit not as many as with fentanyl).

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

#63

Post by darpa_escapee »

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…

> You will get a lighter sentence for 1g of fent vs 100g of heroin, no doubt.

Often, doses of drugs are converted into a marijuana equivalency weight. 1g of fentanyl might be considered the equivalent of 20lb of marijuana in criminal proceedings.

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

#64

Post by yorwba »

shawnee_ wrote: post #43
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…

> the personal decision to use hard or addicting drugs is something of a moral failing. Watch the documentary I mentioned above. Also try this one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4079250/ Addiction is a mental health issue before it becomes a debilitating physical health issue ... one that (very often) leads to suicide or death. To suggest that unwell people have the strength to fight it on their own with the strength o…

I don't read mythrwy as blaming those who are already addicted and can't fight their drug habit, but rather those who start taking drugs even when they should be able to see the consequences. (Some quotes [emphasis mine]: "the personal decision to use hard or addicting drugs is something of a moral failing.", "it is a vice in which people for the most part, at least initially, have some choice.")

Shaming doesn't help the addicts, and probably hurts them by making help less available, but it absolutely helps those people who do not yet have a drug habit. The stigma definitely helped me decline when a bunch of my friends started with marijuana (and I'm sure some did worse, but by then we had become distant).

Although decriminalization is the right move to help addicts, it will also have an effect on non-users who were curious but shied away from doing something illegal and getting in trouble. Personally, I think drugs should be available on a prescription for everyone who actually needs them, but off-limits to those who just want to try them out.

Regarding your aside: I'm not sure what kind of dystopia you imagine a "healthy environment" would be. I interpreted it as making sure that people can feel happy without drugs, e.g. by giving them a stable source of income, fostering community and so on. Do you disagree that those would be a good thing?

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

#65

Post by jeffdavis »

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…

Thank you for articulating a sincere opinion. Regardless of whether it's a good opinion, many people share it and it is worth discussing.

I don't know what downvoters are trying to accomplish here, frankly.

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

#66

Post by justaaron »

I want to point out that this is merely a heroin-inspired "harm reduction" law that removes the criminal penalties from having some arbitrary few number of days supply of any particular illegal substance. (10 days)

It does not recognize any distinction between substances and retains a "shame on you" psy-ops bureau that users caught with minor amounts of said substances are referred to, in lieu of the criminal justice system. This "toxic-dependency" panel has sanctions available including monetary fines and revocation of ones passport or other travel restrictions, to bend one to their ways.

This set of laws does not treat the SUPPLY chain at all!

If one has an amount of substance greater than the threshold one can expect charges of traffic/distribution, which then will collapse after the 1 year investigation results in the non-election to pursue such charges, which has meanwhile resulted in the de-facto punishment of 1 year of weekly(some interval) police-station-sign-ins and a form of house arrest.

It's not a complete set of laws, and while it did manage to dispatch the heroin crisis of years past, it doesn't make any distinction, and thus is impeding efforts towards home cultivation of cannabis being legalized, etc.

De-criminalization, like medical cannabis, has the unfortunate tendency of providing laurels to rest upon, and thus impeding further progress. (observe Spains cooperatives, where signed members cooperatively grow and share in the crop)

Basically, Portugal has a very mature attitude to many things: letting the golden dreams of empire fade as they should, accepting that some people behave rashly and putting an emphasis on harm reduction etc. The emergency services here generally are excellent, professional, and calm in demeanour. I don't think that in practice one notes any major difference in drug usage in society with regards to the rest of Europe, I think one simply notes a bit less paranoia.

By comparison, I find it very odd that more than 15 states in the USA have medical or legal cannabis, yet harm reduction for heroin seems to be missing, and hence I'll just say that some people like to learn the hard way :D

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

#67

Post by petre »

Romania is on the last place according to the chart in the article and drug possesion is a criminal offense in this country. It's punishable by two to five years in jail. The rehab is inside the penitenciary, so you first go to jail, then to rehab.

Also it's quite interesting how just about every country that's close to the Netherlands, save for France which criminalizes posession, is at the top of the chart.

I've been to Lisbon and was approached countless times on the street by shady individuals trying to sell drugs, usually mj/hash but also coke, maybe one time out of ten. This is not a widespread thing in the rest of Portugal, just in Lisbon's very touristy city centre where.

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

#68

Post by CamelCaseName »

jdmoreira wrote: post #44
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'm Portuguese and I grew up watching the heroin epidemic we had in Portugal. It was horrible, like the article mentions 1% of the population was addicted to heroin. Curiously I now live in Sweden, but I lived in Portugal for the first 11 years of the decriminalization. And the solution actually started years before, in the early 90s. It's a bit like you said, it was an huge investment in public health - the first su…

I don't have much to say other than that I really admire that sense of thinking, and I hope more countries can adopt a similar vision.

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

#69

Post by vivekd »

pdpi wrote: post #8
vivekd wrote: post #4

Counterpoint, overdoes deaths increased during some years and drug use has markedly increased: Also the chart supporting less overdose deaths seems to be actually a chart about all drug induced deaths, and not just overdose deaths, which means it could include HIV/AIDS, once a big killer of heroin users which we can now treat for much better. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/10/portugal-decrimin...

> it could include HIV/AIDS, once a big killer of heroin users which we can now treat for much better. If it does, that still supports this theory. My father in law is a leading portuguese HIV expert, and he credits decreminalisation as a key factor in actually getting those patients into clinics and on treatment.

I didn't mean we can treat for AIDS better with legalization, I mean we can treat for AIDS better because of improved and more accessible AIDS treatments that have emerged in the last decade and a half

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

#70

Post by bjelkeman-again »

jdmoreira wrote: post #44
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'm Portuguese and I grew up watching the heroin epidemic we had in Portugal. It was horrible, like the article mentions 1% of the population was addicted to heroin. Curiously I now live in Sweden, but I lived in Portugal for the first 11 years of the decriminalization. And the solution actually started years before, in the early 90s. It's a bit like you said, it was an huge investment in public health - the first su…

I wish we could get the same attitude in Sweden. What do you think is the main barrier in Sweden?
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