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Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?
- sh1mmer 16y agoInteresting tangental fact from the article: As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
- anigbrowl 16y ago2009 - old story is old. Flagged. Edit: it's not that I don't like the story, which I do. It's that we already discussed it here when it came out in 2009.
- jamesbressi 16y agoOld, but more relevant than your comment. This was not deserving of a down-vote and in fact, I'm glad someone posted this old article, because I have been bookmarking studies and observations on this topic lately for research I am doing. EDIT: Sorry, that first line was an unnecessary jab. Based on your Karma and interaction, you add a lot of value to the community, so please continue to support that value, not filter it.
- philk 16y agoI actually found it pretty interesting.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoI upvoted the comment. This is a "news" site, not a "recycled story" site. There's enough new stuff coming through the firehose that we don't need to start reposting the Internet from a year ago.
- epochwolf 16y agoJust because something is old doesn't mean it isn't relevant or interesting.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoJust because it was relevant and interesting a year ago - or ten years ago - doesn't mean you should be posting and reposting and reposting it on a "news" site. Maybe there should be a golden oldies site where people can post all the "but gee it's new to me" stuff.
- anigbrowl 16y agoFYI, exactly 1 year ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580060 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580060 Same time.com story, 220 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=828538 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=828538 Original article, 407 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516678 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516678 It is an interesting issue, and an interesting policy result, and one we should consider adopting here. I am wholeheartedly in favor of reducing government interference in people's personal lives, and I can even consider it hack-worthy insofar as it involves tinkering with legal rather than computer code. But this particular story is no longer news. Not included are about 10 other HN threads referencing the same article, which you can find by going to google and searching for 'site:news.ycombinator.com drugs portugal'. This gets posted in some fashion every 90 days or so.
- wrinklz 16y agoPerhaps HN should have a freshness date on all news.
- jamesbressi 16y agoDoes the findings in this article surprise anyone? No? Good. I'm not a hippy, but let's get over this b.s. "War on Drugs" and begin to use our common sense when dealing with social issues and impeding on natural rights.
- philk 16y agoUnfortunately common sense is often electoral suicide.
- protomyth 16y agoIsn't calling something "common sense" when it isn't the common belief kinda against the definition?
- jrockway 16y agoPeople are weird. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber
- bOR_ 16y agoStart educating your social circle then, they are part of the electorate. At least, that is my view. I don't like things being unmovable :).
- huherto 16y agoI don't support the use of drugs either. But we are living very difficult times and a lot of truly innocent people are suffering. We need to find a better way, but the first step is to have a better understanding of the problem and that is why I think these articles are good. I'm writing this from one of the most violent places in Mexico.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoWhile I strongly support your conclusion in this case, I'm infuriated every time I hear a call for a policy change based on "common sense". As far as I can tell, this is just a euphemism for "I am unable to articulate a rational basis for my position", or even "I refuse to let the actual evidence interfere with my position".
- Anon84 16y agoI'm portuguese (lived there until I left for my PhD a few years ago) and I've always found this system a bit odd. You can own it and use it, but you can't produce it, sell it or distribute it. Maybe the government believes in the spontaneous generation of drugs? A couple of quick points, though: rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped This isn't directly connected with the decriminalization. There is a program that allows anyone to switch a used needle by a new one (plus a condom, a bottle cap and instructions) for free in any pharmacy/drug store. This program started years before the decriminalization and had a reduction of HIV infections as a goal (hence the condom and the instructions) One of the main advantages of decriminalization was that is open the doors for a lot more treatments. Before, you had to admit to have committed a crime (with legal consequences) before you could be treated. The decriminalization eliminated these consequences and helped people find the help they needed
- param 16y ago>> You can own it and use it, but you can't produce it, sell it or distribute it. Maybe the government believes in the spontaneous generation of drugs? I am sure the point is for the Govt. to prosecute the producer, not the consumer. This is similar to some countries outlawing 'consumption' of prostitution services, but not offering of such services.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoThat's something I've never understood. How come the drug buyer is the victim, and so is the sex seller?
- Qz 16y agoWhen you learn how many of the women in prostitution are forced into that work by sex traffickers or sheer poverty, it's not hard to understand. The sex 'seller' often isn't the one who gets the money.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
- iaskwhy 16y agoI'm from Portugal. There's something important missing from the article which might be useful to explain why there were so many people using drugs in Portugal. Before 1975, the country was under a dictatorship and drug use was obviously low. Then there was a revolution and people were free to the outside world's culture. On the years following the revolution, young adults were pretty much amazed by all the things you couldn't see in Portugal before like Coke or rock music or, right!, drugs. I don't know many people with the age of my parents whom didn't try drugs, soft or hard, back then. This behavior was also common on the generation which was born during the revolution, like my brother. There was more information on the end of the 80s and teens were still trying soft drugs but starting to avoid hard drugs. I can't really explain why this happened but I know bad stories about drugs were all the time on the news. For instance, in my house my father always said: "If you ever try drugs don't ever come back." He never knew about my brother but there was a cousin in the family completely addicted, he died recently. I'm on my twenties so I'd say I'm from the generation after my brother's. I never tried drugs but all my friends did, no exception. They just aren't addicted, don't know why. It's pretty common for them to carry small dosages of marijuana which are allowed by law but there's one thing they don't know: it's legal, like the article states. It has to be a really small dosage but it's enough for you if you're not addicted. And that's what's funny: I never met anyone who knew it was legal (and I knew it because my brother worked at the courtyard) and everyone still looks at Amsterdam like the holy place for drugs in Europe. It's like a taboo, nobody is supposed to talk about it being legal, and it works I guess.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoReading between the lines of your post, I think you're suggesting that the Portugal experience is unique due to recent cultural changes, and we shouldn't try to apply these lessons elsewhere. However, I know bad stories about drugs were all the time on the news. For instance, in my house my father always said: "If you ever try drugs don't ever come back." He never knew about my brother but there was a cousin in the family completely addicted, he died recently. I'm on my twenties so I'd say I'm from the generation after my brother's. I never tried drugs but all my friends did, no exception. They just aren't addicted, don't know why. This sounds very much like a typical experience in America.
- ErrantX 16y agoI'm slowly coming round to this as a good idea - at least to trial. If you have the requisite support (like in Portugal) to go with it and are not just decriminalizing possession alone then it should work well. The only problem I have is that it might encourage the use of drugs; which is potentially dangerous for people. Worth a trial for sure.
- Qz 16y agoMight encourage some people, and yet might encourage more to seek treatment. Risk/reward, have to do the math to figure out if it's worth it.
- Mark_F 16y agoSomething for sure is that criminalization does never work.
- trominos 16y agoI'm in favor of sweeping decriminalization (and legalization), but the data in this article -- hand-picked, no doubt, by the Cato Institute -- barely suggest correlation between decriminalization and declining drug use rates and stop way before causation. The only conclusion you can legitimately draw from this, I think, is that decriminalization doesn't result in all hell breaking loose in at least the short term. Which is great! But I'd like to see a more substantial (and, if possible, more neutral) study.
- njharman 16y agoIs anyone else perplexed that the success metric for decriminalization is reduced drug use? I'd think reduced crime (esp organized), reduced prison populations, savings in prosecuting housing drug non-criminals, job increases from local production/distribution, and/or tax revenue increases would all be more interesting / relevant metrics. It sounds like Portugal took the path of "it's still illegal and bad, we're just not gonna punish you for it". Which isn't really decriminalization in my book.
- lmkg 16y agoNo, that's decriminalization. Leaving the laws on the books but not enforcing them is decriminalization. Taking the laws off the books is legalization. The societal view of whether it's bad or not can't be legislated directly, but it could change as use patterns shift over the years.
- Symmetry 16y agoI seem to recall hearing that when alcohol was legalized the number of people drinking roughly doubled and the number of alcoholics went up by around 15% (there seems to be a correlation between substance abuse and willingness to break the law, surprise surprise).
- puredemo 16y agoAgreed. It presumes that usage is inherently bad, which is questionable.
- miguelpais 16y agoI think the system is being overrated both in the article and in your comments. I'm from Portugal (but that doesn't mean I'm an authority on the reality of my country, as I haven't been involved in this kind of situations and didn't experience the system working) but I just think the whole thing just comes down to "you're not punished for having it". But that doesn't mean that there exist government production sites or distribution stores. So there isn't any advantage for the goverment such as incoming tax money from the drugs or increse in job positions. Also there is no mistaken belief that the goverment supports the drugs perceived by the youth because actually all the system does is not arresting you, the goverment doesn't provide the availability of drugs. If the system ends up helping the addicted individuals or not, that is something that I don't know. Though it seems obvious that arresting someone is not the wisest first step for treatment, I end up figuring how does the system reaches the addicts then (I don't think getting help by themselves is something they would do without a great external help).
- Jeema3000 16y agoIncarceration rates in the United States today, which are due largely to the anti-drug get-tough policies of the last 30 years, should alarm anyone who believes in the principles of liberty that this nation was founded on, IMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...
- endtime 16y agoIf you think the laws themselves are faulty, then argue against their merit. But arguments of the form "if we removed laws, less laws would get broken" have always seemed somewhat vacuous to me. Edit: Given the downvotes, I'd love to have a discussion with someone who disagrees.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoWell, here's one aspect. Start with the facts that this is supposed to be a free nation, a republic with representational democracy, putatively making our own laws. Now consider that a large fraction of the population is in prison for these very crimes, more so than anywhere else in this world. This should suggest (although not prove) that the government is imposing its own will, overriding the wishes of the people whose right it is to determine the laws (through their representatives). I'm reminded of the old 55mph speed limit laws. States would be tested by the federal government; if it was found that more than 50% of drivers exceeded 55, the state could lose federal highway funding. It seems to me that if more than half of the drivers exceeded the speed limit, well then, that's pretty much the same thing as having a referendum with a majority of voters saying that the speed limit is too low.
- endtime 16y agoI understand your argument, but I don't think it's correct. In a democracy, there is no theoretical reason why 49% of the population wouldn't end up in jail. I certainly don't think this would be a good thing, but pure, untainted democracy does nothing to prevent it. You say "if more than half of the drivers exceeded the speed limit, well then, that's pretty much the same thing as having a referendum with a majority of voters saying that the speed limit is too low", but that's really a straw man, because nowhere near half of all Americans are in prison. And in our case, those in prison are not drawn uniformly from the American population. Prisoners are disproportionately from a minority (intended in the "not majority" sense, not in the skin color sense, though I suppose in this case either applies) subculture, and unfortunately, that subculture glorifies many types of criminal behavior, most of which I imagine you wouldn't favor legalizing. Again, it's perfectly valid to say that drug laws are wrong and here's why, and that if your ideas were implemented, incarceration rates would be much lower, and that this would be a good thing. All I'm disagreeing with is the general notion that saying laws should be abolished simply because doing so would lower crime rates isn't persuasive. I mean, we could get rid of all the laws, and then the incarceration rate would be zero, but something tells me you wouldn't like that.
- akshaym 16y agoThis is an interesting article as well I think: http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/this-is-my-column-this-is-my-column-on-drugs-any-questions/ http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/this-is-my-column-this-is-...
- kingkawn 16y agoI'd like to agree with this study, but its from the Cato Institute...
- allmothers 16y agothis is really going bad and somebody has to stop it, if its true..