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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPortugal Decriminalized All Drugs in 2001. Now Almost No One Overdoses.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/30586-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-in-2001-now-almost-no-one-overdosesPortugal decriminalized the use of all drugs in 2001. Weed, cocaine, heroin, you name it -- Portugal decided to treat possession and use of small quantities of these drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. The drugs were still illegal, of course. But now getting caught with them meant a small fine and maybe a referral to a treatment program -- not jail time and a criminal record.
Whenever we debate similar measures in the U.S. -- marijuana decriminalization, for instance -- many drug-policy makers predict dire consequences. If you make any attractive commodity available at lower cost, you will have more users," former Office of National Drug Control Policy deputy director Thomas McLellan once said of Portugal's policies. Joseph Califano, founder of the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, once warned that decriminalization would "increase illegal drug availability and use among our children."
But in Portugal, the numbers paint a different story. The prevalence of past-year and past-month drug use among young adults has fallen since 2001, according to statistics compiled by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which advocates on behalf of ending the war on drugs. Overall adult use is down slightly too. And new HIV cases among drug users are way down.
Now, numbers just released from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction paint an even more vivid picture of life under decriminalization: drug overdose deaths in Portugal are the second-lowest in the European Union.
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Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs in 2001. Now Almost No One Overdoses. (Original Post)
eridani
Jun 2015
OP
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)1. If harm reduction were the goal.....
but it isn't. The goal is control coercion corruption and incarceration. Prohibition is an essential tool in the system of the global security state.
hunter
(38,317 posts)2. The U.S.A. tries to solve problems with punishment and wars...
... and inevitably makes the problems much, much worse.
And somehow there is always a class of people who profit from in the chaos, making more money and seizing more political power.
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)3. k and r