Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#211

Post by 4ntonius8lock » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 3:00 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #160

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so you need to address the argument that the public is given: that illicit drugs are so dangerous that the enforcement is worth it Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things that are enforced 'on other people'. Middle class young hippies were shocked when the system showed its teeth and banned a substance so that t…

> Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things that are enforced 'on other people'. The vast majority of people do not have trouble generally abiding by the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act; and while that doesn't mean it's just , but it does mean it's not crazy for ordinary people to think that others could…

The people who designed the war on drugs, did so with a target. It is to this day blatantly targeting certain communities, for example, sentencing guidelines between crack and cocaine.

Your logic is faulty: If you follow your line of thinking making the Kippah illegal would be fine since the 'vast majority of us' wouldn't have any trouble abiding by the new law. Oh, you did put in a condition: as long as enforcement is 'perceived by the ordinary person' to be non-prejudice. I'm not sure why you put that condition into the logic, or how that changes the reality of the injustice... but ok.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#212

Post by 50656E6973 » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 3:33 AM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #52

50656E6973 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no grand conspiracy to keep drugs illegal Many people working together to keep something illegal in order to profit is not a "conspiracy", it's lobbying. >semi well intentioned system How is valuing money and power over millions of lives "semi well intenioned"?

Very few of the millions of people are conspiring together in a single group. They conspire in small groups to achieve their individual goals which may directly contradict the goals of others within the system on a case by case basis. It's not like some secret cabal where they sit around in black robes and vote on how to maximize false arrests for profit. Do you think out of every one of the millions of people in tha…

Equating corporate lobbyists and special interest groups with "secret cabals in black robes"? That is caroonish indeed. Unless of course you consider black suits and ties to be "black robes" ;)

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#213

Post by zcid » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 3:47 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #179

zcid wrote: post #112

Same-sex marriage never achieved enough support to be legalized [0][1]. It was voted against throughout the country including liberal states such as California. Same-sex marriage was legislated by a small number of judges. I'm not making an argument for or against so please don't debate me on the merits of this issue. I am merely pointing out that the people did not decide this issue. A very small number of elites di…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434037 .

Can I ask why this comment was detached?

I feel it was relevant to the point the OP was making concerning legislation vs popularity among the citizenry.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#214

Post by dmix » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

coretx wrote: post #175

dmix wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s illegal in Canada (everything besides weed) and most of the western and non western world too. We don’t have private prisons or even a separate agency like the DEA whose job is directly tied to drugs. It’s very much still a cultural reality people haven’t accepted. Although it doesn’t help with the gov agencies constantly fear mongering or straight up lying.

Indigenous Canadians use ( not abuse ) drugs since forever. Traditionally, religion is the gateway to murderous drug policy almost everywhere; uphold by the highly profitable and rent seeking security industrial complex. It's a self reinforcing circle. One that's not likely to end anytime soon. Look at the downvotes i received on my previous post - one that is not only evident but can easily be proven to be true.

Sure but a lot of people still believe drugs should be illegal and it’s still a big cultural taboo in many parts of the world. Only recently in the west has that started to shift over 50% for pot. Other ones are much farther behind.

That has a big effect on the system as a whole. I still think the agencies and policy directly influences people’s opinion. They constantly hear about drug dealers getting arrested so they associate it immediately as bad people engaged in bad things.

So it does have a cyclical effect but not just for financial or rent-seeking reasons. Which exists but I suspect has a smaller role than you think.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#215

Post by zkomp » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #160

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so you need to address the argument that the public is given: that illicit drugs are so dangerous that the enforcement is worth it Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things that are enforced 'on other people'. Middle class young hippies were shocked when the system showed its teeth and banned a substance so that t…

> Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things that are enforced 'on other people'. The vast majority of people do not have trouble generally abiding by the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act; and while that doesn't mean it's just , but it does mean it's not crazy for ordinary people to think that others could…

The war on drugs is and has always been racist, it is targeting minorities and filling prisons. How it is precieved is a different thing.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#216

Post by StreamBright » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 7:35 AM UTC

brokenkebab wrote: post #173

phil248 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you arbitrarily exclude suicide from gun violence? Guns are a distinct problem because they make serious injury/death incredibly easy and simple. That's just as true for murder as it is for suicide, and in a world without guns both acts would have a far lower success rate.

That's just as true for murder as it is for suicide, and in a world without guns both acts would have a far lower success rate. There are two logical mistakes in this reasoning: first, there's an implicit equation "prohibited guns"="no guns", and it's obviously not true, and explicit statement that less guns - less murders, and even less suicides, which is provably false. Right now, I live in a country where having j…

Yep. Also there are countries like Switzerland and Finland where the guns are present yet they are one of safest places on Earth. Interestingly Finland is #32 Switzerland is #61 and USA is #34 on the suicide rate list[1].

However gun ownership rates: USA #1, Finland #10, Switzerland #19 [2].

For me it just shows that there is no correlation between gun ownership rates and suicide rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#217

Post by ernst_klim » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

hugoromano wrote: post #81

This story always comes back every year. With some ground knowledge on this, as I worked previously for Portugal Ministry of Health (Regional Subdivision). All this is price, and the programme works because drugs go where the money is, i.e. not Portugal, goes to the UK and Germany. On the other hand, Alcoholism is a massive issue in Portugal, and there is no Government action.

> because drugs go where the money is, i.e. not Portugal, goes to the UK and Germany.

What do you mean? Russia is one of the main drug consumers, and that's not where money is.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#218

Post by rstuart4133 » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 8:16 AM UTC

JasonFruit wrote: post #132

I don't have a strong opinion on Portugal's drug policy. But I do think there's a flaw in the premise of this article: the success of Portugal's policy here was dependent on Portugal's culture, history, population, and a host of other factors that can't be replicated in another country. It's as though I think the United States Constitution is a great thing — as in fact I do — and say, "The radical US Constitution has…

> Portugal's policy here was dependent on Portugal's culture, history, population, and a host of other factors that can't be replicated in another country.

What Portugal did was pretty straight forward. A lot of people were dying from drugs. They decided it might be because if you sought treatment you we hauled in front of a judge and from there usually went to jail. They didn't decriminalise it - you are still hauled before a judge. But from there the next step was treatment for the addiction.

Not surprisingly, the evidence directed treatments works better than the non-evidence directed treatment (jail) so a lot less people end up being severely harmed by them. As a bonus those treatments were a lot cheaper than incarcerating them.

The real difficulty is doing that is having a central government strong enough to get it done. Obviously having such a government is somehow related to "culture, history, or population", but only tangentially as I'm sure every parliament in OECD countries could do it equally well regardless of their history. The only difficulty they would be have is opposition from people who are presumably like you and think it would do more harm than good.

The only facet that could be surprising is it didn't change the level of drug usage overly. Roughly the same number of people use drugs in Portugal - the only differences are a lot less harms are caused and their habit costs society as a whole a lot less.

I don't know what percentage of people think that that way. It's a bit foreign to me, as I find the idea of trying to prevent people from injecting poisons into their blood stream by threatening to harm them in other ways to be downright odd.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#219

Post by dang » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 8:43 AM UTC

zcid wrote: post #213

dang wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434037 .

Can I ask why this comment was detached? I feel it was relevant to the point the OP was making concerning legislation vs popularity among the citizenry.

It turned into a thread about same-sex marriage, which has nothing to do with the article. Whimsical tangents can be ok, but well-worn-political-debate tangents are off topic on HN.

Keep in mind that when we moderate something like that, it's never just about the root comment (i.e. the one you posted). It's always about the subthread as a whole.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#220

Post by arcturus17 » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 8:51 AM UTC

cjblomqvist wrote: post #86

A lot of comments about why decriminalization of drug use is a no brainer. I'd like to point out that it's not that simple. From what I understand from different "experiments" like Portugal, it's a lot depending on context (eg culture) and how it's done. For example, easier access (lower taxes) on alcohol caused a rise in alcoholics and alcohol related deaths in Finland). Not everyone living in Colorado is happy abou…

> easier access (lower taxes) on alcohol

I think you are conflating decriminalization with taxation, and decriminalization with legalization, because alcohol is a legal drug. Most people I know who are in favor of legalizing other drugs also support their taxation; at the very least to a point where (a) consumption is heavily disincentivized, (b) external negativities are paid for, and (c) black markets nearly disappear.