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Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

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Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#241

Post by Cupprum »

m463 wrote: post #77
virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…

Same sort of thing happened with mental illness in california, probably a leading cause of homelessness problems. Years ago, the law was changed to allow mentally-ill but benign or even non-ill people to escape the "snake pits", mental institutions that kept people incarcerated and drugged. This allowed lots of people to recover. But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding. Now…

But then the question is why is there more mentally ill people than in other countries. I know that many homeless people come there from other states because of the easy winters, but then i would assume something similar in europe as well. Spain has many homeless people as well, but there is fewer of them.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#242

Post by SllX »

ETH_start wrote: post #220
SllX wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how Portuguese law works but in the United States non-profits have private owners and are private corporations. The contrast they have is with “for-profit” corporations, not “private” corporations. Given the primary purpose of being designated a “non-profit” is a tax advantage for the corporation, I’m willing to bet Portuguese corporations likely don’t differ in this manner. Privatize is an acceptable ve…

> Privatize is an acceptable verbiage for a government or government-owned entity which has outsourced to a private corporation. Given how the term is conventionally used, 'privatize' implies that for-profit enterprise has taken over, and even pedantically - looking at what the root word of the term technically means instead of how the term is conventionally used - it implies for-profit enteprise, given private owner…

> Given how the term is conventionally used, 'privatize' implies that for-profit enterprise has taken over, and even pedantically

Granted this would be an uncommon use of the verbiage given the situation, that does not mean it is incorrect usage. You are correct that typically privatization occurs when a government service is executed by or government infrastructure is transferred to a private for-profit corporation, it is not necessarily the case that it has to be a for-profit corporation for privatization to occur.

Non-profits can still be and are privately owned, what’s different about them is the accounting rules they are subject to and their status per statute. In exchange for their tax advantaged status, they give up their ability to return a profit to the owners, but it still has owners.

Also just a side note, I would be interested to hear if anyone wants to chime in if any of this is fundamentally different under Portuguese law.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#243

Post by jdmoreira »

stinos wrote: post #233
jdmoreira wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These guys are not even selling you drugs. They are selling you some fake thing. They just swindle tourists. They are hustlers not even real drug dealers. I'm Portuguese and lived in Lisbon for 12 years. Trust me, you can't buy drugs from those guys

Trust me, you can't buy drugs from those guys What I don't get about this: most people seem to know (think?) this. So you'd think these guys have no income at all because no-one is trusting them so no-one buys from them. Yet after decades they're still there, in a lot of cities. So there must be something which works in this system. I find it hard to believe they survive off the occasional sell to a tourist. I mean,…

It's not occasional. They sell a lot. There is a lot of gullible people in this world and an endless supply of fresh tourists or kids from other towns landing in Lisbon everyday. They only need to scam 1 person a day to make 50€. That's more than most Portuguese earn per day.

They scammed me when I was a kid (I wanted weed).

Don't you think I know what I'm talking about? You can buy drugs is Lisbon of course but real drug dealers aren't approaching thousands of people in the open streets of downtown Lisbon everyday!

Police leaves these guys alone because there is no real crime. Scamming tourists is hard to persecute. Not worth it!

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#244

Post by skissane »

SllX wrote: post #235
samtho wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most situations, a non-profit entity cannot be owned by a corporation in such a way that would give it controlling interest. If you are planning on filing for tax exemption, this is absolutely the case. A non-profit, however, can own (partially or completely) a for-profit corporation and have controlling interests.

Sure, but also that doesn’t contradict the nature of a non-profits as corporations with a private ownership structure. Non-profit is the colloquialism for a corporation with a certain status per a statute that grants the corporation some tax exemptions in exchange for their ability to return a profit. The corporation receives a benefit for this status and is subject to stricter accounting rules, but is still a privat…

> Non-profit is the colloquialism for a corporation with a certain status per a statute that grants the corporation some tax exemptions in exchange for their ability to return a profit

Not all non-profits are corporations–many non-profits are trusts, and legally speaking trusts are not corporations (although it is not uncommon for them to own corporations, or to have corporations as their trustees–or even beneficiaries). Many small non-profits are unincorporated associations. Nonprofit versus for-profit status is an orthogonal dimension from corporate vs non-corporate legal structure.

Also, "non-profit" isn't a "colloquialism", it is an official legal term in several jurisdictions: for example, 37 US states have (at least partly) adopted the American Bar Association's "Model Nonprofit Corporation Act" [0]. And it isn't just an official legal term in the US, see section 48 of the Australian state of Victoria's Payroll Tax Act 2007, entitled "Non-profit organisations" [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Nonprofit_Corporation_Ac...

[1] https://austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_a...

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#245

Post by eimrine »

bolangi wrote: post #229
bugglebeetle wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They slashed funding to successful parts of the strategy and now claim the strategy failed. Neoliberalism in a nutshell.

It's a bit like the matrix, wherever something good and helpful starts to develop anywhere, an agent in a green suit appears to put a stop to it.

Crabs in a bucket?

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#246

Post by mihaaly »

> Crime — including robbery in public spaces — spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use.

Why not on economic hardship around the pandemic?

Am I the only one having the feeling that drog use was picked to blame for some of the troubles experienced (not all, visible use must be a burden, just like the visible alcoholismn on streets and related ill behaviour) and the article should have explored the alternative views some more.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#247

Post by localplume »

belval wrote: post #68
WillPostForFood wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen how much San Francisco and Seattle have improved with drug tolerant policies?

This is the new "but that was not TRUE communism". The more tolerant places are overrun with drug users and homeless camps yet their supporters online will say "but if we provided more money for housing and decriminalized all drugs, now that would solve the issue".

[dead]

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#248

Post by mcpackieh »

jurynulifcation wrote: post #102
wintogreen74 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and our opioid situation is just super, nothing to see here!

Do you think that's down to availability, or down to a lack of support and education?

It's certainly not a problem with education. Nobody in this country can claim they were never told that drugs are bad.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#249

Post by johngladtj »

BeefWellington wrote: post #172
oneshtein wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from the article: > A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001 So, No.

How do they define "illicit drugs" if everything is legal?

It's never been legalized.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#250

Post by raverbashing »

m463 wrote: post #77
virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…

Same sort of thing happened with mental illness in california, probably a leading cause of homelessness problems. Years ago, the law was changed to allow mentally-ill but benign or even non-ill people to escape the "snake pits", mental institutions that kept people incarcerated and drugged. This allowed lots of people to recover. But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding. Now…

And how long has it been that Reagan is no longer the governor and why hasn't funding been restored?
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