Drug laws: We should follow Portugal's lead

[Ravi]

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

 

[Mike Mitrosky]

just legalize them all already..

 

[Douger]

You guys are on the wrong forum. This place is full of miltaristic, brainwashed, flag waving, assholes that worship the tooth fairy and Hayzoos.
Your thoughts, however, are 100% correct.

 

[Douger]

Here's one from Time mag
Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

 

[WillowTree]

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

 

[WillowTree]

wonder what a "dissuasion commission" does,, hhhhmmmm..

 

[Ravi]

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

Even the rightwingers in Portugal are happy with the result.

 

[editec]

Drug problems are medical, not legal problems.

Drugs use or abuse should never have been a police problem to begin with.

All it did was turn otherwise law abiding citzens into criminals.

And that was, I suspect, the whole point.

 

[GHook93]

I agree! However, I would like a few changes to the Portuguese Plan:
(1) Make Weed legal to produce, smoke and sell. It makes no sense why its not already. However, criminalize, similar to alcohol, for DUI.
(2) Legalize 3 other "hard" drugs: Cocaine, E and Shrooms. Put the 21 year age limit like Alcohol. My reasons:
a) E, like weed, is mentally not physically addictive. However, it has been a source of ODs. Make it legal and control what's in it. This is a drug made in America, no way in hell you can keep it out of teenagers and college kids hand's. No one sucks dick, robs or kills for E. Best we can do is make it safer, place warning on packages, put the 21 rule on it (yes I know there are ways around it, I bought pegged in highschool, but Weed was much easier to get than Alcohol in high school). Try to educate and make it safe. That is a better solution.
b) Cocaine - Make coke legal can control the dangerous stuff its mixed with. It not an hallucinate, nor is it as inhabilitating as alcohol. Making coke legal would also probably KILL the crack market (crack came about in order to make coke cheaper for the poor). Not to mention the coke market (and to a lesser extent meth and Pot) is what fuels the Cartels of Latin America. We would instantly take away their cash crop. Legal coke would also be a great alternative to the much more deadly, addictive and dangerous meth! Legal coke is the lesser to 2 evils.
c) Shrooms - A natural drug that grows on cow poop! It's impossible to stop its manufacture and sale of. It's dangerous in the sense that you hallucinate, however, no where near are dangerous as LSD. Shrooms at least is natural and legal shroom is a nuclear bomb to the LSD market, just see Amsterdam! No LSD there.

(3) Still make the distribution, production and sale of meth, heroine and LSD illegal, but decriminalize position of any of them, but to a certain amount, which I will let the experts determine. However, make the punishment swift and extremely harsh. Distribution, production and sale of any of the 3 is the equivalent of (in)voluntary manslaughter. This will make only the most ruthless push these drugs, raising the stakes and increasing the price. With the legal alternatives of Weed, Coke and Shroom, the market for at least meth and LSD should evaporate and heroine should decrease 10 fold.

(4) Require and provide for free clean needles at many locations throughout the US.

(5) Make possession charges like traffic tickets. You can plead guilty and pay the fine in the mail. Request a trial and go to traffic court. Allow rehabit (like traffic school) as an alternative to a ticket.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

 

[WillowTree]

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

Even the rightwingers in Portugal are happy with the result.

wait til they wake up and find they are "Greece" do you think they will burn the place down like the Greeks did?? or will they take their medicine like men?

 

[Ravi]

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

Even the rightwingers in Portugal are happy with the result.

wait til they wake up and find they are "Greece" do you think they will burn the place down like the Greeks did?? or will they take their medicine like men?

Drugs aren't decriminalized in Greece. Here we have the usual hysterical post from Willow.

 

[Ravi]

I agree! However, I would like a few changes to the Portuguese Plan:
(1) Make Weed legal to produce, smoke and sell. It makes no sense why its not already. However, criminalize, similar to alcohol, for DUI.
(2) Legalize 3 other "hard" drugs: Cocaine, E and Shrooms. Put the 21 year age limit like Alcohol. My reasons:
a) E, like weed, is mentally not physically addictive. However, it has been a source of ODs. Make it legal and control what's in it. This is a drug made in America, no way in hell you can keep it out of teenagers and college kids hand's. No one sucks dick, robs or kills for E. Best we can do is make it safer, place warning on packages, put the 21 rule on it (yes I know there are ways around it, I bought pegged in highschool, but Weed was much easier to get than Alcohol in high school). Try to educate and make it safe. That is a better solution.
b) Cocaine - Make coke legal can control the dangerous stuff its mixed with. It not an hallucinate, nor is it as inhabilitating as alcohol. Making coke legal would also probably KILL the crack market (crack came about in order to make coke cheaper for the poor). Not to mention the coke market (and to a lesser extent meth and Pot) is what fuels the Cartels of Latin America. We would instantly take away their cash crop. Legal coke would also be a great alternative to the much more deadly, addictive and dangerous meth! Legal coke is the lesser to 2 evils.
c) Shrooms - A natural drug that grows on cow poop! It's impossible to stop its manufacture and sale of. It's dangerous in the sense that you hallucinate, however, no where near are dangerous as LSD. Shrooms at least is natural and legal shroom is a nuclear bomb to the LSD market, just see Amsterdam! No LSD there.

(3) Still make the distribution, production and sale of meth, heroine and LSD illegal, but decriminalize position of any of them, but to a certain amount, which I will let the experts determine. However, make the punishment swift and extremely harsh. Distribution, production and sale of any of the 3 is the equivalent of (in)voluntary manslaughter. This will make only the most ruthless push these drugs, raising the stakes and increasing the price. With the legal alternatives of Weed, Coke and Shroom, the market for at least meth and LSD should evaporate and heroine should decrease 10 fold.

(4) Require and provide for free clean needles at many locations throughout the US.

(5) Make possession charges like traffic tickets. You can plead guilty and pay the fine in the mail. Request a trial and go to traffic court. Allow rehabit (like traffic school) as an alternative to a ticket.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

I think you are just making it more complicated. Why imprison people simply because they abuse themselves?

 

[GHook93]

I would think this move is an anti-Greece move. They will safe a boat-load of money not incarcerating drug users. Less police/government dollars going after these guys. Less government intervention altogether. Fining users, instead of expensive trials, would seem like another revenue saving method also.

Note: Boston decriminalized weed. Its been a CASH CROP for them. When Phish or other hippie bands tour in Boston. The entire police force is out in numbers and working overtime. It's one of the biggest revenue producers of the year and the cops get a boat load of OT.

This seems an anti-Greek policy to me!

Even the rightwingers in Portugal are happy with the result.

wait til they wake up and find they are "Greece" do you think they will burn the place down like the Greeks did?? or will they take their medicine like men?

Drugs aren't decriminalized in Greece. Here we have the usual hysterical post from Willow.

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

Even the rightwingers in Portugal are happy with the result.

wait til they wake up and find they are "Greece" do you think they will burn the place down like the Greeks did?? or will they take their medicine like men?

 

[GHook93]

I agree! However, I would like a few changes to the Portuguese Plan:
(1) Make Weed legal to produce, smoke and sell. It makes no sense why its not already. However, criminalize, similar to alcohol, for DUI.
(2) Legalize 3 other "hard" drugs: Cocaine, E and Shrooms. Put the 21 year age limit like Alcohol. My reasons:
a) E, like weed, is mentally not physically addictive. However, it has been a source of ODs. Make it legal and control what's in it. This is a drug made in America, no way in hell you can keep it out of teenagers and college kids hand's. No one sucks dick, robs or kills for E. Best we can do is make it safer, place warning on packages, put the 21 rule on it (yes I know there are ways around it, I bought pegged in highschool, but Weed was much easier to get than Alcohol in high school). Try to educate and make it safe. That is a better solution.
b) Cocaine - Make coke legal can control the dangerous stuff its mixed with. It not an hallucinate, nor is it as inhabilitating as alcohol. Making coke legal would also probably KILL the crack market (crack came about in order to make coke cheaper for the poor). Not to mention the coke market (and to a lesser extent meth and Pot) is what fuels the Cartels of Latin America. We would instantly take away their cash crop. Legal coke would also be a great alternative to the much more deadly, addictive and dangerous meth! Legal coke is the lesser to 2 evils.
c) Shrooms - A natural drug that grows on cow poop! It's impossible to stop its manufacture and sale of. It's dangerous in the sense that you hallucinate, however, no where near are dangerous as LSD. Shrooms at least is natural and legal shroom is a nuclear bomb to the LSD market, just see Amsterdam! No LSD there.

(3) Still make the distribution, production and sale of meth, heroine and LSD illegal, but decriminalize position of any of them, but to a certain amount, which I will let the experts determine. However, make the punishment swift and extremely harsh. Distribution, production and sale of any of the 3 is the equivalent of (in)voluntary manslaughter. This will make only the most ruthless push these drugs, raising the stakes and increasing the price. With the legal alternatives of Weed, Coke and Shroom, the market for at least meth and LSD should evaporate and heroine should decrease 10 fold.

(4) Require and provide for free clean needles at many locations throughout the US.

(5) Make possession charges like traffic tickets. You can plead guilty and pay the fine in the mail. Request a trial and go to traffic court. Allow rehabit (like traffic school) as an alternative to a ticket.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.

Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results: Scientific American

I think you are just making it more complicated. Why imprison people simply because they abuse themselves?

Not sure you read my post. I am for legalization of Weed, Coke, Shroom and E. I am for decriminalization of possession and usage of other drugs. I am for swift and harsh punishment for the production, distribution and sale of Heroine, LSD and Method.

Where did I say jail for users?

 

[StoneageHippy]

The war on drugs/people is a cottage industry. There are just too many people who rely on it to pay their country club dues and keep their swimming pools heated for things to change.

It's nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy which will never stop growing as drug usage continues, and corruption becomes rampant.

 

[Ravi]

I agree! However, I would like a few changes to the Portuguese Plan:
(1) Make Weed legal to produce, smoke and sell. It makes no sense why its not already. However, criminalize, similar to alcohol, for DUI.
(2) Legalize 3 other "hard" drugs: Cocaine, E and Shrooms. Put the 21 year age limit like Alcohol. My reasons:
a) E, like weed, is mentally not physically addictive. However, it has been a source of ODs. Make it legal and control what's in it. This is a drug made in America, no way in hell you can keep it out of teenagers and college kids hand's. No one sucks dick, robs or kills for E. Best we can do is make it safer, place warning on packages, put the 21 rule on it (yes I know there are ways around it, I bought pegged in highschool, but Weed was much easier to get than Alcohol in high school). Try to educate and make it safe. That is a better solution.
b) Cocaine - Make coke legal can control the dangerous stuff its mixed with. It not an hallucinate, nor is it as inhabilitating as alcohol. Making coke legal would also probably KILL the crack market (crack came about in order to make coke cheaper for the poor). Not to mention the coke market (and to a lesser extent meth and Pot) is what fuels the Cartels of Latin America. We would instantly take away their cash crop. Legal coke would also be a great alternative to the much more deadly, addictive and dangerous meth! Legal coke is the lesser to 2 evils.
c) Shrooms - A natural drug that grows on cow poop! It's impossible to stop its manufacture and sale of. It's dangerous in the sense that you hallucinate, however, no where near are dangerous as LSD. Shrooms at least is natural and legal shroom is a nuclear bomb to the LSD market, just see Amsterdam! No LSD there.

(3) Still make the distribution, production and sale of meth, heroine and LSD illegal, but decriminalize position of any of them, but to a certain amount, which I will let the experts determine. However, make the punishment swift and extremely harsh. Distribution, production and sale of any of the 3 is the equivalent of (in)voluntary manslaughter. This will make only the most ruthless push these drugs, raising the stakes and increasing the price. With the legal alternatives of Weed, Coke and Shroom, the market for at least meth and LSD should evaporate and heroine should decrease 10 fold.

(4) Require and provide for free clean needles at many locations throughout the US.

(5) Make possession charges like traffic tickets. You can plead guilty and pay the fine in the mail. Request a trial and go to traffic court. Allow rehabit (like traffic school) as an alternative to a ticket.

I think you are just making it more complicated. Why imprison people simply because they abuse themselves?

Not sure you read my post. I am for legalization of Weed, Coke, Shroom and E. I am for decriminalization of possession and usage of other drugs. I am for swift and harsh punishment for the production, distribution and sale of Heroine, LSD and Method.

Where did I say jail for users?

You didn't, I just think you are making it more complicated than it needs to be...why even fine people for possession, for example?

 

[Ravi]

The war on drugs/people is a cottage industry. There are just too many people who rely on it to pay their country club dues and keep their swimming pools heated for things to change.

It's nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy which will never stop growing as drug usage continues, and corruption becomes rampant.

That's a defeatist attitude. If enough of us demand it, it will happen.

 

[StoneageHippy]

The war on drugs/people is a cottage industry. There are just too many people who rely on it to pay their country club dues and keep their swimming pools heated for things to change.

It's nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy which will never stop growing as drug usage continues, and corruption becomes rampant.

That's a defeatist attitude. If enough of us demand it, it will happen.

I will never give up opposing it. I am, however, disappointed in President Obama for not doing enough to change our policy about it.

 

[syrenn]

sounds like Utopia, doesn't it.. Legal drugs to get addicted to,, free treatment centers instead of jail.. ahhh shang ri la.. but oh my.. Portugal is going broke, then what will you have? a bunch of drug addicts with no drugs, no money, and no treament centers..this liberalism stuff is good til you run out of other people's money innit?

You took the words right out of my mouth!

 

[California Girl]

I have no problem with not putting people in prison for using drugs. But.... fund your own fucking treatment... I'm not paying for other people's self inflicted issues. Die, live.... I don't care.... just not on my dime.