BlindBoo
Diamond Member
- Sep 28, 2010
- 56,925
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Imagine a country so fed up with its ineffective crime-and-punishment approach to drug abuse that it decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of narcotics for personal use.
At the same time, it launches a concerted effort to provide treatment for addicts instead of just throwing them in prison. Surely such a naive land would see a sharp increase in drug use, and perhaps a generation of youth blighted by easy access to mind-altering substances. But in Portugal, which is just such a country, that's not what happened.
Drug use does seem to have gone up, but this increase may well be illusory—and rather harmless. What's not illusory, on the other hand, is the sharp reduction in the ills associated with drug abuse. Nine years into its courageous experiment with sanity as a national drug policy, Portugal is indisputably better off. And it's getting some well-earned attention for its efforts.
Policy-makers in some other western countries, including the U.S., ought to pay especially close attention, given the colossal futility of its own endless “war on drugs” — for never has a cure been so much more catastrophic than the disease it was intended to remedy.
GuelphMercury - Portugal's experiment with drug laws is paying off
At the same time, it launches a concerted effort to provide treatment for addicts instead of just throwing them in prison. Surely such a naive land would see a sharp increase in drug use, and perhaps a generation of youth blighted by easy access to mind-altering substances. But in Portugal, which is just such a country, that's not what happened.
Drug use does seem to have gone up, but this increase may well be illusory—and rather harmless. What's not illusory, on the other hand, is the sharp reduction in the ills associated with drug abuse. Nine years into its courageous experiment with sanity as a national drug policy, Portugal is indisputably better off. And it's getting some well-earned attention for its efforts.
Policy-makers in some other western countries, including the U.S., ought to pay especially close attention, given the colossal futility of its own endless “war on drugs” — for never has a cure been so much more catastrophic than the disease it was intended to remedy.
GuelphMercury - Portugal's experiment with drug laws is paying off