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Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

theguardian.com

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Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#301

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

haggy wrote: post #293
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…

I would love to see hard statistical evidence that less guns = less deaths. The problem with your hypothesis (because without proof, that's all that your comment is) is that less guns in the hands of innocent people is a recipe for disaster. I live in the US and we see the exact opposite of what you claim. We typically see higher death rates of innocent people in states with very strict gun regulation (Chicago for ex…

Recent study: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2017/10/19/states-wi...

The Australia and British laws and results are evidence that is plain in front of you. Those are humans on a different piece of land on our planet that on a whole have less gun violence occurring because there are less guns.

You can talk about culture, how it wouldn't work, etc. but that is the exact point the parent comment is making.

It would be nice if the US would let the CDC do in-depth studies of this nature, but gun lobbyists have blocked this from happening.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#302

Post by andai »

haggy wrote: post #293
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…

I would love to see hard statistical evidence that less guns = less deaths. The problem with your hypothesis (because without proof, that's all that your comment is) is that less guns in the hands of innocent people is a recipe for disaster. I live in the US and we see the exact opposite of what you claim. We typically see higher death rates of innocent people in states with very strict gun regulation (Chicago for ex…

I recently learned that James Holmes, who committed the Aurora cinema mass shooting, drove an additional distance to get to the only theater in the area where customers weren't allowed to have firearms, the only place where law-abiding citizens weren't allowed to defend themselves.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#303

Post by dep_b »

The interesting thing is that although the relative success with decriminalization of drugs in The Netherlands was one of the examples that inspired many other countries to liberalize their policies, The Netherlands itself did not make any progress at all in the last thirty years and even reversed some policies.

Marijuana is still officially illegal, coffeeshops cannot run a 100% legal business and small growers have been systematically persecuted. Only big, criminally run enterprises remain with the typical organized crime problems as a result.

It's no longer legal to amphetamines-related drugs at electronic parties and related drug-related deaths because of too strong or impure XTC are on a rise. Magic mushrooms are banned from sale because some tourists in Amsterdam had bad trips. And there was this story about a man slaughtering his dog that was awfully similar to those Marijuana stories in the 20's: https://www.expatica.com/nl/news/country-news/Man-kills-dog-..., amongst other "sudden" mushroom scare stories in the press.

Although because of lack of actual knowledge about these kind of substances allowed the sale of magic truffels to continue everywhere where before the mushrooms were sold, the magic mushroom scare stories in the media suddenly stopped.

It really saddens me that even more successful and better regulated policies from other countries are not followed in The Netherlands.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#304

Post by crankylinuxuser »

oeuviz wrote: post #259
toomanybeersies wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really want to get into the gun control debate here, since that isn't the point of the article. But if you compare the developed countries, you will find that the USA has by far the highest firearms homicide rate. Obviously some of it is cultural, for instance, I'm from New Zealand, and I was raised with the attitude that if you own firearms, you should (almost) never use them for shooting people. They're for…

> I was raised with the attitude that if you own firearms, you should (almost) never use them for shooting people. This is key info here. People in different corners of the world react differently to owning weapons. While some are taught to only use them as tools, others have them for fun. While some will only shoot them to kill pray, others will shoot at people. It already shows in the shooting ranges, in some parts…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-pol...

When the Supreme court rules that the police do not have a constitutional requirement to protect, that resides in the last mile - us. We legally cannot count on others to do this for us. And that includes even a court issued protective order .

As for a trespasser/thief, if they have no compunction of breaking the law to break and steal, how do we know they aren't armed? So you end up with Castle Doctrine - given how prevalent guns are, it's safe to assume a bad actor who has broken in has one.

The last problem with the whole gun rights, which usually makes me not comment about it, is that the US is the only country in the world that enshrines gun rights in the founding documents. (Badly written, and SCOTUS has ruled on both sides of the main interpretations). That isn't changing until the US, well, isn't.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#306

Post by alkonaut »

andrenth wrote: post #297
alkonaut wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty tired tautology. It might also lead to less guns also in the hands of those who don't care about laws. For example because fewer guns can make them a lot more expensive and/or more risky to aquire illegaly. One can't simply argue that "A law against X only affects those who care about laws!". That's always the case. Seatbelt laws leads to fewer deaths - among those who care about seatbelt laws. A ban…

Those are absolutely flawed comparisons, because a criminal, by definition, is someone who doesn't care about the law. You cannot make that assumption about smokers or drivers.

> a criminal, by definition, is someone who doesn't care about the law.

That was my point too: that it's not really a good argument to argue against laws because they are uneffective against criminals who don't care about them.

Laws against child abuse are only effective on people who care about child abuse.

Laws against plane hijacking are only effective on people who care about laws on plane hijacking.

What's the difference?

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#307

Post by kaybe »

andrenth wrote: post #256
omnimus wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol this is exactly what above comment talks about. You are picking the country that fits that narrative but forget about all of the rest. Brazil compared to US is so poor and with shitty corrupted police. US police prides itself on being the best most sophisticated in the world i dont se a reason why they would have problems doing same job as police in europe. They would have it in fact much easier. Also the fact th…

> You are picking the country that fits that narrative but forget about all of the rest A proof by contradiction only requires one single example. > Brazil compared to US is so poor and with shitty corrupted police That's true but completely unrelated to gun ownership. The police has to deal with people who don't care about gun ownership laws. > Also the fact that Brazil has gun problems even when guns are prohibited…

> Criminals can be absolutely sure that citizens won't be able to protect themselves.

How about this: Criminals can expect not to be shot when they try to pull something, thus they don't have to shoot first. If the amount of criminals trying to pull something does not go up or down (which I expect but don't know) the whole criminaling might become less deadly.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#308

Post by MaxBarraclough »

yAnonymous wrote: post #257
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…

>there's a bunch of people that say it's going to cause the corruption of society Well, just look at the US. Political correctness is getting totally out of hand and the same is happening more and more in European countries. Changing traditions causes a lot of entitlement in people who also feel that they should get a special treatment and it seems that there's no end to it. In a democratic society, entitlement from…

> Changing traditions causes a lot of entitlement in people who also feel that they should get a special treatment and it seems that there's no end to it. In a democratic society, entitlement from small groups is a societal cancer.

I'd hardly call gay marriage 'special treatment'. It's the opposite: equal treatment. In that regard it's fundamentally different from, say, mandatory wheelchair-access laws.

> They absolutely need to have it called marriage, a word that has had a different religious meaning for hundreds of years.

The emotional baggage of religious conservatives isn't reason enough to deny gay couples an equal right to be officially partnered in the eyes of the law. 'Equal' includes the name of the arrangement.

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#309

Post by flaviojuvenal »

major505 wrote: post #285

Each country needs to have its own thing. In Brazil for example, a measure like this wold not have any impact because we do not have control over our borders. Take smoking for example. Even if tabacco its alowed, its really expensive to buy legalized cigarrets. So peoplo just smoke cheap ones, that enter from Paraguai border, with no quality control, and brougth in Brazil by organized crime, or even produced in cland…

Smuggled tobacco is at most 30% of Brazilian market. Was 16% before 2011. If we had 70% of legalized marijuana, we would be much better.

Source: https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2014/07/04/intern...

Re: Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

#310

Post by cmiles74 »

haggy wrote: post #293
toomanybeersies wrote: post #50

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…

I would love to see hard statistical evidence that less guns = less deaths. The problem with your hypothesis (because without proof, that's all that your comment is) is that less guns in the hands of innocent people is a recipe for disaster. I live in the US and we see the exact opposite of what you claim. We typically see higher death rates of innocent people in states with very strict gun regulation (Chicago for ex…

Chicago is a terrible example. They may have restrictive gun control laws, but you need only leave the state and it's a very different story.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20151008/NEWS02/15100...

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