Portugal's drug policies.

[neither]

Portugal is a fairly conservative place. We could gain a lot by copying their policies. The war on drugs here is really a war on it's people.

Portugal Drug Laws

 

[Pogo]

>> Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.

Ten years ago [written 2011], Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half:

Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal's decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.

... The number of addicts considered "problematic" -- those who repeatedly use "hard" drugs and intravenous users -- had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

Other factors had also played their part however, Goulão, a medical doctor added.

"This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies."

Many of these innovative treatment procedures would not have emerged if addicts had continued to be arrested and locked up rather than treated by medical experts and psychologists. Currently 40,000 people in Portugal are being treated for drug abuse. This is a far cheaper, far more humane way to tackle the problem. Rather than locking up 100,000 criminals, the Portuguese are working to cure 40,000 patients and fine-tuning a whole new canon of drug treatment knowledge at the same time.

None of this is possible when waging a war. << --- Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half

​

The difference between dealing with an issue by understanding and working with its dynamics, versus the American method of po-faced obliteration and simply tossing everybody in prision. Human versus subhuman.

 

[Derideo_Te]

The phony "war on drugs" is a big part of the problem that has resulted in the militarization of the police and the mistreatment of blacks by cops in this nation.

Legalization would go a very long way towards remediating both of those problems IMO.

 

[prison/con.net]

of course it would. It would also reduce the number of cops and the salaries paid cops. can't have THAT, dont ya know!

 

[Derideo_Te]

According to the OP article all of that funding was put towards rehabilitation and jobs programs so the cops could be retrained too.

 

[neither]

The war on drugs has created a cottage industry for the agencies involved. They are making more than the drug dealers.

Just follow the money and bodies.

 

[prison/con.net]

half of the cops could just be laid off, too. Major improvement all around.

 

[Unkotare]

Has anyone mentioned how drug-related deaths increased in Portugal after radically liberalizing their drug laws?

 

[neither]

Has anyone mentioned how drug-related deaths increased in Portugal after radically liberalizing their drug laws?

No, why don't you prove it?

 

[prison/con.net]

you can bet that they DIDNT increase, cause the quality of the dope would be MUCH better and no robberies to get money for dope, and no fights over "turf" by gangs selling dope. Varying amounts (and types) of adulterants is the the cause of lots of "accidental" overdoses, killing and hospitalizing hundreds of thousands of people in the US (every year). Portugal doesn't have these problems.

Dope was LEGAL in the US until 1914 and it wasn't killing anyone. and yes I DO mean opium, cocaine and the like. I don't know if heroin and meth had been developed yet, but opium and coke certainly had. CocaCola originally had cocaine in it.

 

[neither]

Oregon legalizes marijuana. Thank you God. Marijuana is Now Legal in Oregon

 

[prison/con.net]

being legal has not reduced the price of pot in CO. Potheads are just idiots. why not just grow your own, and pay nobody anything?