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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?

#161

Post by adventured »

lmm wrote: post #132
adventured wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

edit: the downvotes would be amusing if it weren't because I'm bringing up how regressive most European nations are about gay marriage. I understand it's an inconvenient fact and upsetting to some, I'll go ahead and retain my position however: 70% of European nations not allowing gay marriage, is a travesty. Consider for a moment, that in the responses below, people are actually defending and rationalizing that 70% o…

> Those are European nations, it's entirely fair to count them as European nations. Proportion of nations is misleading compared to proportion of population.

Not in this case it isn't, due to the size of the population figures.

Those European nations that don't allow gay marriage collectively represent several hundred million people.

Besides, the majority of nations in the world are small, that doesn't excuse them not legalizing gay marriage. 70% is a very high number of nations in Europe to not have legalized gay marriage.

If the US only had legalized gay marriage in 15 states, such as California, New York, Washington, Massachussetts, etc. - it would be properly mocked as regressive and backwards.

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

#162

Post by ramy_d »

andrenth wrote: post #150
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…

> less handguns = less deaths. This does not follow. Take Brazil for example. 60k homicides per year, and guns are pretty much forbidden. Of course, criminals don’t seem to care.

shockingly true https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Brazil

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

#163

Post by Broken_Hippo »

donkeyd wrote: post #154
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…

> Gay marriage is a prime example I think it's a horrible example in this context, because you can't compare being gay to being a drug abuser. One of them is nature, the other is nurture (at least, that's what research says, people are still debating though). Also, you can't measure "corruption of society, or ruin the sanctity of marriage, or cause God to punish us", since they're all populist statements. The benefit…

Sure they can measure such things if they can define it. Only problem is that we disagree on their measurements and they aren't set in fact. It is really similar to the drug policy measure arguments. You know, "druggies will be walking the streets" and "young folks will start using and have no reason to avoid it!"

And more of the society will crumble sorts of bits.

It really doesn't matter if there are benefits or not in other countries, just like it doesn't matter if legal gay marriage hasn't doomed other countries. Facts aren't an issue in these sorts of disagreements, unfortunately.

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

#164

Post by omginternets »

ewjordan wrote: post #114
barsonme wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has also reduced drunk driving rates. What happened to the overall DUI rates, though?

I'll take 10 stoned drivers over 1 drunk one any day of the week. Stoned drivers may be slow as hell and really annoying, but drunk ones speed and kill people all the time.

This is the kind of thing that really needs to be cited.

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

#165

Post by adventured »

dmitriid wrote: post #159
andrenth wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> less handguns = less deaths. This does not follow. Take Brazil for example. 60k homicides per year, and guns are pretty much forbidden. Of course, criminals don’t seem to care.

Take Europe for example. Less homicides than the States, guns are pretty much forbidden (yes, they are all but forbidden in Switzerland, too).

Canada has a lot of guns (not nearly as many guns as the US of course), far more guns than most European nations. It has a far lower gun murder rate than the US. There are other factors in play than just whether guns are forbidden or not. For example, gun laws and the nature of those laws (or lack thereof).

Finland, Norway, Austria, France, Iceland, Germany, Switzerland - seven of the top 20 nations when it comes to guns per capita.

It's the nature of the gun laws, not the forbidden or not forbidden aspect, that plays a far larger role.

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

#166

Post by alkonaut »

andrenth wrote: post #150
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…

> less handguns = less deaths. This does not follow. Take Brazil for example. 60k homicides per year, and guns are pretty much forbidden. Of course, criminals don’t seem to care.

> This does not follow.

If the ban didn't actually lessen the number of handguns, then we don't have the left hand side of the implication! These are two things:

ban on handguns -> less handguns

less handguns -> fewer deaths

Someone argued that the second is true, and you seem to refute it by saying the first isn't. So maybe you aren't talking about the same thing. I'm going to argue that the second thing isn't controversial. What's difficult and possibly controversial is whether item #1 is possible in Brazil, or the US (where guns are already common).

My take on it is this:

stricter laws + wait 2 or 3 generations -> fewer guns.

fewer guns -> fewer deaths.

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

#168

Post by rmchugh »

In regards to why it hasn't been copied, I have heard that part of the problem is that the UN officially supports the War on Drugs. European countries are reluctant to break ranks with the UN in this matter, while progress at the UN itself is held up by conservative countries such as Iran.

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

#169

Post by DanBC »

omginternets wrote: post #164
ewjordan wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take 10 stoned drivers over 1 drunk one any day of the week. Stoned drivers may be slow as hell and really annoying, but drunk ones speed and kill people all the time.

This is the kind of thing that really needs to be cited.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/

> Detrimental effects of cannabis use vary in a dose-related fashion, and are more pronounced with highly automatic driving functions than with more complex tasks that require conscious control, whereas with alcohol produces an opposite pattern of impairment. Because of both this and an increased awareness that they are impaired, marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies. Combining marijuana with alcohol eliminates the ability to use such strategies effectively, however, and results in impairment even at doses which would be insignificant were they of either drug alone. Epidemiological studies have been inconclusive regarding whether cannabis use causes an increased risk of accidents; in contrast, unanimity exists that alcohol use increases crash risk. Furthermore, the risk from driving under the influence of both alcohol and cannabis is greater than the risk of driving under the influence of either alone. Future research should focus on resolving contradictions posed by previous studies, and patients who smoke cannabis should be counseled to wait several hours before driving, and avoid combining the two drugs.

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

#170

Post by badminton1 »

This is the best perspective I have ever seen on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE

This is a TED talk from Gabor Mate, a physician that works with drug addicts. The highlights from his perspective are:

- Simple activities like watching television, gambling and shopping can be addictive, but most people will not develop an addition to them.

- The most addictive drugs act on the dopamine and endorphin systems. The people developing the strongest addictions happen to be people that do not produce enough of their dopamine or endorphines so once they feel better than a regular person when consuming them externally.

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