Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 545 posts

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

#181

Post by alkonaut »

piokoch wrote: post #116
toomanybeersies wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ > Gun ownership was a significant predictor of firearm homicide rates (incidence rate ratio = 1.009; 95% confidence interval = 1.004, 1.014). This model indicated that for each percentage point increase in gun ownership, the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%. Firearms ownership rate doesn't correlate directly to firearms crime rates, but the…

First of all that research is correlation study, so equally well we can argue that increasing number of homicides in some area made people to buy more guns to defend themselves. Secondly, this research looks only on guns vs. homicides, I would say that there could be a few other factors that might be more stronger then guns (poverty level, drugs abuse level, local society structure, etc.) - this is speculation, but I…

> so equally well we can argue that increasing number of homicides in some area made people to buy more guns to defend themselves.

And taking that reasoning one step further I'm going to argue that in places where guns are prevalent/accepted, people might think a gun can be used for self defense, so more guns actually lead to even more guns.

Whereas in places where guns are scarce and unaccepted, they are less likely to be seen as tools for self defense, so a neighborhood having more guns does not lead to others buying guns.

So I'm arguing both things happen. If you have a culture of gun ownership then more guns will lead to both more homicides and more guns.

But if there is no cultural belief in guns as self protection, then that correlation doesn't occur.

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

#182

Post by ivanhoe »

alkonaut wrote: post #172
dmitriid wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think the whole relationship with "guns" is completely different. We have tons of "guns", but basically no handguns, very few semiautomatics, and absolutely no military style weapons. (Yes - our laws explicitly say that if a gun is a civilian version of a military model, it is banned. It's a good law). Most importantly we have strict storage laws (you can't drive around with a gun in your car every day, you can't h…

This is an excellent analysis

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

#183

Post by danmaz74 »

adventured wrote: post #120
matthewmacleod wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not misleading in the least It’s possible for something to be both true and misleading - the 70% figure makes the situation sound worse than it really is, IMO.

> the 70% figure makes the situation sound worse than it really is, IMO. The situation is bad, IMO, when the majority of European nations don't allow gay marriage. It's a grotesque travesty.

> It's a grotesque travesty.

What is a travesty, exactly?

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

#184

Post by Spare_account »

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.

How many homicides per year were there before they banned guns?

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

#185

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

The ban on weapons won't stop criminals from getting them or mass shootings or whatnot; like in Brazil, that's a societal problem, not caused by the relative accessibility of guns.

Accidental gun deaths will however drop by a lot. Thousands of people die every year from that (including 1300 children according to a random headline I quickly googled). These are silly and preventable deaths.

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

#186

Post by croon »

adventured wrote: post #123
r00fus wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You show figures for the past year, yet the most recent legislative acts were both 10 (VCRA) and 20 (Firearms act) years ago. I agree both that you're factually correct and that your data does not at all support your earlier assertion that "banning guns increased gun crime". So % are increasing, but the overall per-capita UK gun crime and death is still woefully below the good ol US of A as per: https://www.usatoday.…

> I agree both that you're factually correct and that your data does not at all support your earlier assertion that "banning guns increased gun crime". You just made a mistake there. I didn't assert earlier that banning guns increases gun crime. Someone else said that.

So you're just presenting random facts that don't relate to the conversation?

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

#187

Post by danmaz74 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #149
negativ0 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but you cannot kill 40 people in 20 seconds with a knife... come on guns are just wrong

Cannot easily do that with a handgun either.

The point is that you can easily do that with guns you can easily and legally buy in the US, and then applying a kit that you can also easily and buy in the US to make them fully automatic.

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

#188

Post by toomanybeersies »

adventured wrote: post #97
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, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Unfortunately that's an exaggerated claim. The world is still extraordinarily backwards when it comes to gay marriage. 70% of European nations for example don't allow gay marriage. About 90% of the world's population live in a nation where gay marriage is not yet legalized. Only a little over two dozen nations allo…

"A lot" is not equivalent to "most".

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

#189

Post by rusk »

Tyco wrote: post #62
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…

Well, the US legalizes gay marriage and now they have Trump. Rebuttal?

I think there may be something to this. Though perhaps a better term than "rebuttal" is "backlash". The conservative backlash has long been mooted by social commentators.

It's likely a large cohort of Trumps voters were those who were incensed by "central government interfering in local affairs", in particular the case of Kim Davis springs to mind.

Never mind that Trump doesn't exactly embody conservatism, I'd imagine a large amount of conservative voters, alarmed by social progress would have voted him out of spite.

Of course, now I like to think that the current wave of high-profile sexual impropriety cases is similarly a sparked by the more socially liberal sectors of society against the misogyny embodied by Trump and the socially conservative segments.

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

#190

Post by ohfunkyeah »

alkonaut wrote: post #172
dmitriid wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think the whole relationship with "guns" is completely different. We have tons of "guns", but basically no handguns, very few semiautomatics, and absolutely no military style weapons. (Yes - our laws explicitly say that if a gun is a civilian version of a military model, it is banned. It's a good law). Most importantly we have strict storage laws (you can't drive around with a gun in your car every day, you can't h…

Ah! you've hit the nail on the head why the pro gun people are so adamant about not giving an inch to any sort of increased regulations. Most on the pro gun regulation left do not seem to be able to even fathom why closing the gun show loophole is a non-starter or how there can be push-back against banning guns for people on the terrorist watch list. It's because either are effectively turning the burner on very very low.
Post reply on HN