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Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?

572 points by benbreen 9y ago

thisisit 9y ago
This is great. But I sometimes wonder if the people who advocate for "x worked for y, so it is best practice and every should do it" appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences?
- Jedd 9y ago
  > But I sometimes wonder if the people who advocate for "x worked for y, so it is best practice and every should do it" appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences? TFA touches on this, and I'd suggest that any in-depth, thoughtfully written piece on this subject would necessarily consider the complexities and cultural differences from one place to another -- especially if they're considering the question 'Why isn't this happening / why doesn't this work elsewhere?'. But often the answer to that question is well understood (the HN comments now - half an hour in - are somewhere on the cynical to pragmatic part of the spectrum) and also understood is why the problem is difficult, if not intractable. Apropos, from TFA: "But if conservative, isolationist, Catholic Portugal could transform into a country where same-sex marriage and abortion are legal, and where drug use is decriminalised, a broader shift in attitudes seems possible elsewhere." This is an optimistic sentiment from a social attitudes POV, but misses the financial incentives within the USA (for example) of retaining the current arrangement.
- stretchwithme 9y ago
  Which is why I'd prefer it if such decisions can be made very locally. It's easier to see the effect of a change if five counties in New Jersey make it and infant mortality soars compared to the rest of the state than if the entire country makes the change at once. And those counties can also revert to the old policy in less time than it takes to convince an entire country to repeal bad policy. We've made big changes in the past that turned out to be the wrong thing and it takes many years to correct. Prohibition, for example. Or deciding the entire country is going to allow leaded gasoline, instead of allowing cities like Philadelphia to ban it. It took another SEVENTY TWO YEARS to finally get it banned.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  > appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences? Laws come from culture but culture and attitudes also comes from laws. I agree these complexities can't be ignored, but when I argue (perhaps less bluntly) that e.g. "The US should just ban handguns and implement single payer healthcare because it obviously works everywhere else" Then what I mean is that with stricter gun laws, perhaps the culture and attitudes surrounding guns can be slowly changed. I'm not saying "if you change gun laws you'll see a positive effect on gun deaths within 5 years". I'm arguing that if the US changes gun laws perhaps there will be significant improvement in (just!) a couple of generations.
rectang 9y ago
Because moral vanity is more addictive and destructive than any chemical substance.
- LoonyBalloony 9y ago
  "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats." - Aldous Huxley
deleted 9y ago
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yosito 9y ago
Because drug policy is about associating your political opponents with criminal activity and has nothing to do with preventing drug abuse or addiction.
- berbec 9y ago
  I do believe you've hit the nail on the head there. It seems one of the big initial reasons for calling cannibis marijuana and criminalization was part of racist legislation against Hispanics. 'Numerous accounts say that "marijuana" came into popular usage in the U.S. in the early 20th century because anti-cannabis factions wanted to underscore the drug's "Mexican-ness."' [1] 1: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuana https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025...
  - angry_octet 9y ago
    Exactly. Its dog whistle politics, portraying Hispanic and African American people as the major source of drug crime.
    - berbec 9y ago
      They are the major source of drug crime. We make sure to arrest more minorities for drug offences, therefore they must be the source. Ignore any spurious "facts" that show drug use and incarceration rates don't match! It must be the brown people.
  - MrsPeaches 9y ago
    See also Opium and Chinese people at the turn of the 20th century. US has a long history of drugs policy being tightly integrated with racial politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/02/06/the-opium-exclusion-act-of-1909/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/02/06/the-opium-exclusion-...
brokenmachine 9y ago
Because the US prison industry policy is working as desired.
- krisives 9y ago
  Uniforms, food, beds, etc. all of very poor quality being sold at high margin. Policing for profit essentially.
  - berbec 9y ago
    Dont forget the private, for-profit prisons themselves. If there ever was an industry that didn't need a profit motive...
- badcede 9y ago
  That doesn't explain the rest of the world.
  - anm89 9y ago
    The US uses a couple tools to make US drug policy essentially world drug policy. Mainly trade agreements, military agreements(weapon sales and defense agreements), and economic aid. We attach riders to these agreements which make adoption of US drug law a condition of the deal. This is in first world countries. In the second and third world countries (the middle east and south america, and to a lesser but not negligible extent Africa) we just enforce our laws by force with or without permission.
    - badcede 9y ago
      That doesn't explain Portugal.
burntrelish1273 9y ago
Two reasons: 0. Military Indu$trial Complex 1. Moral-panicking Christian sociopaths hate poor people
- log_base_login 9y ago
  Not sure why you have to point at the members of the Christian religion as the culprit, when there are people of similarly zealous ilk in each and every religion besides Christianity. Certainly, Christianity has the majority stake of religion in the Western world, but this question is a global one, and I don't remember the last time a person was summarily executed for dealing drugs in a Christian country like one might find in Singapore, or their head cut off like one might find in certain Middle Eastern countries, or (again) killed, in certain African countries. Pointing a finger at a single group is unproductive when the desired outcome is a more comprehensively understanding, less punitive, and essentially more humanitarian solution for what is at issue. The real disconnect is that the people in power are not held to the same standard as those being sentenced. When was the last time you heard of a prosecuting attorney being drug tested before they could argue in court? What about a judge, or probation/parole/police officer? If there was some transparency in how ubiquitous drug use actually is, one might have some real leverage when seeking to implement more equitable (and therefore less punitive) legislation that provides fairer sentencing guidelines.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    > I don't remember the last time a person was summarily executed for dealing drugs in a Christian country like one might find in Singapore, or their head cut off like one might find in certain Middle Eastern countries, or (again) killed, in certain African countries. This is precisely what's happening in the Philippines, a predominantly Christian nation, and very devoutly so.
    - log_base_login 9y ago
      Fair point, I didn't realize that the Philippines were predominantly Christian. I really didn't want to go about defending Christianity necessarily, though I realize that is how the beginning of my comment turned out, but rather point to how we shouldn't generalize the problem into a certain religion being responsible for problem. Thanks for helping me understand the punitive issue in more detail.
beager 9y ago
So it’s apparent that many governments around the world are unwilling to take a similar approach to drug use. But could Google, Apple, Facebook et al provide services there? Create functionality to aid in harm reduction and addiction outreach? What would those things really look like, and would those companies actually leverage their access to billions of people to help with drug abuse?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- freedomben 9y ago
  While in this case I would agree with the action, I think it's kind of a dangerous thing to want our giant corporations undermining our government and laws, and imposing their own values in our society.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    Too late.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  Pls no. Pls, really no. I really dont want any of those companies to even get anywhere near this.
  - angry_octet 9y ago
    "Uber, but for illegal drugs."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
palad1n 9y ago
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-n...
- natural219 9y ago
  Gotta love that URL. "War-on-drugs-racism-Nixon". For some reason I predict this link will shed more heat than light.
  - jack9 9y ago
    History often has such an effect. People forego the truth in fear of the heat and deny there is any truth at all. The Damore problem.
sfRattan 9y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair That's about it really. There are a whole lot of people across the world whose salaries depend on an unending drug war.
- burntrelish1273 9y ago
  Thank the gods someone else knows this quote. It explains a great deal about the sources of cognitive dissonance of wealth entitlement and conservative ideology: fundamental dishonesty in regards to the plight of other people and willful ignorance about existential survival issues like climate change. PS: modernizing it: It is difficult to get someone to understand something, when their salary, lifestyle or belief-system depends upon them not understanding it.
  - sfRattan 9y ago
    Eh. I've always believed power and wealth interact with human nature at a lower level than ideology (to use a bit of a software metaphor). Relating Sinclair's observation to a particular contemporary political group or hot-button issue misses the forest for the trees.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  That thought doesn't really capture the reason. It applies in some circumstances but not this one. In a republic, people are only paid to enforce restrictive drug policy because the people want them to. Most people look at the issue in simple terms. "Drugs are bad, so keep them away from people". Legalization is a counterintuitive way to lower incidence of use and addiction, it will take a lot to convince people it is good for society. Edit: Blaming public support for restrictive drug policy on "media" and "politicians" puts the cart before the horse. Society often moves down the path of least resistance. Tough drug policy is appealing to people because it sounds logical. Therefore the elements of society that depend on the acceptance of the people - politicians, media, etc - also accept it and tow the line. Influencers do not exist in a vacuum. They are influenced by the prevailing mood just like everyone else.
ericand 9y ago
tl;dr: Portugal decriminalized drug-use and others are reluctant to do so. If you want a summary... Portugal overcame an opioid epidemic through an "enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself... The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more effectively to serve their communities." "Massive international cultural shifts in thinking about drugs and addiction are needed to make way for decriminalisation and legalisation globally. In the US, the White House has remained reluctant to address... but... one has to want the change in order to make it." I'm interested to hear ideas on how other countries can come to be less reluctant and want to change if anyone has any.
freedomben 9y ago
People fear the unknown. Also to most people drug culture is repugnant and they don't realize that only a small minority of users are "drug culture." In reality, most of the users are their neighbors, friends, and family members, and they have no idea it is happening. It's obviously quite a good deal for politicians. They get political victories by whipping a minority that can't fight back, and by stirring up angst among the ignorant. They also fuel the prison industrial complex, which I increasingly believe is a thing. My two cents.
thrden 9y ago
One thing that people aren't considering is that we have legalization experiments within the United States, and we have seen an uptick in marijuana usage[1]. This uptick has been benign because its been limited to Marijuana. I think that given our culture (one that I believe is potentially universal, but I can not speak to universality) has a tendency toward over consumption, its not clear to me that legalization of drugs would lead to decreased usage. I'm not advocating continuing our failed drug war, just caution when considering legalization, it may still be the best way forward. [1] http://www.rmhidta.org/html/FINAL%20NSDUH%20Results-%20Jan%202016%20Release.pdf http://www.rmhidta.org/html/FINAL%20NSDUH%20Results-%20Jan%2...
- dkroy 9y ago
  How has this affected tax revenue on these legalization experiments? How has this affected drug related crime as well? Is this increase bad? I would love for someone to dig up these answers as I have referenced Portugal's policy in many arguments, but never the ones we have been trying out here at home as they are newer and often more restrictive in comparison.
- eberkund 9y ago
  I haven't heard it argued that legalizing drugs would decrease usage. Just that it would lead to safer usage, reduce crime, destigmatize addiction and allow for better treatment of addicts.
  - ht85 9y ago
    You're correct that addicts won't stop using because of decriminalization, but it does open new ways of helping those people. Instead of forcing them to hide, prosecuting, incarcerating and labeling them as undesirable members of society, you can create infrastructure and programs that could help many of them deal with their issues over time. Sometimes the hardest part of exiting addiction is that the only people who understand or tolerate you are other addicts, creating a very hard to escape circle.
- fabrice_d 9y ago
  The benefit of legalizing marijuana is not to decrease usage but to cut financing to dealers. It is also safer for users, and reduces the risk to exposure to more dangerous drugs.
froderick 9y ago
IME, human beings generally expect things that are true to be intuitive, and tend to interpret causality eagerly. The history of science is littered with folks that ended upon the wrong side of it because their intuition couldn't be rationalized (the earth _not_ being flat, for instance). It doesn't surprise me that many countries will be very slow to change. Change would require citizens to invest in understanding the research and to recognize that the "obvious" solutions to drug addiction aren't necessarily the effective ones.
bob_theslob646 9y ago
>Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country. The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more effectively to serve their communities. At least in the U.S, we thrive on _treating_ versus curing, plus , didn't you know if you fall on hard times medically especially with anything related to addiction or mental health, you have to bootstrap yourself up from your own bootstraps or go to a 5k a week rehab facility that does not accept insurance. If drugs are legal in the U.S, who is going to pay all those private jail/prison owners excutive salaries? Where are those corporations going to get the slave labor? Who is going to pay all those police officers all those raises for keeping drugs off the street? How are alcohol and tobacco companies supposed to find new consumers whose lives are ruined for possession of marijuana who are unable to secure any form of higher level of employment( extremely difficult) because they were arrested for carrying marijuana. That's why the United States has not copied it.
- berbec 9y ago
  Also, think of the extra mental effort to find ways to incarcerate minorities and the lower class! We can't have our justice system burning out their brains.
- freddie_mercury 9y ago
  The fact that things work differently outside of the US yet most foreign countries still haven't adopted it suggests that none of your purported reasons are the primary cause. They almost certainly are tiny things with very small marginal contributions when countries as varied as Russia, Australia, Sweden, Poland, Singapore, and Switzerland -- who don't have of the factors you mention -- also have failed to follow Portugal's innovation.
anm89 9y ago
Because the goals of US drug policy have nothing to do with public health outcomes or justice by any metric. US drug policy is incredibly effective at the things it is designed to do,which are keeping prisons full and police budgets enormous. Why would we change a policy which is already perfect?
andrewstuart 9y ago
Portugal’s policy is deeply flawed because it does not legalize the sale of all drugs, only the consumption. When selling is legal is when organized crime leaves the picture, taxes can be collected, product is clean and measured and of quality. Both sides of the equation are important to legalize, doing one without the other means huge problems remain.
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  I don't think that something as harmful as heroin should be legal to sell, even in a taxed and regulated scenario. Other options that, in my amateur opinion, would be better, would be to more heavily penalise adultered drugs, or to have pharmacies supply, with a prescription, addictive drugs, but only to addicts. The latter idea is basically an extension of safe injection clinics.
  - rblatz 9y ago
    There are multiple drugs of the same class as heroin that are actually stronger and more dangerous than heroin that are legal. But they aren’t sold cut to hell with fillers in order to make extra money.
    - eitland 9y ago
      They are also only sold with a prescription. And while I know US has an opioid crisis this prescription thing seems to work here.
      - justrobert 9y ago
        Except anyone can buy fent online easily. Far more dangerous for anyone who is near those that buy it.
        apexalpha 9y ago
        Except people don't here.
adeshpande 9y ago
Chasing The Scream by Johann Hari is a really good book for anyone who's more interested on learning more about how Portugal went about the decriminalization and just a really interesting book in general on the war on drugs.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of people that say it's going to cause the corruption of society, or ruin the sanctity of marriage, or cause God to punish us. However, legalising gay marriage in other countries hasn't caused the sky to fall. But anti-gay marriage people conveniently ignore this. The same wilful ignorance of existing examples is also applied to Universal Healthcare, drug laws, minimum wages (for either raising or lowering/removing), criminal justice, firearms, and education. Obviously countries are all different, but the general ideas are the same. For example, it's fairly well established that the less guns there are, the less gun crime there is, however, an Australia or British-style "ban handguns and buy them back off owners" isn't going to work in America. But the same principle applies, less handguns = less deaths.
- briandear 9y ago
  Any citation on fewer handguns, fewer deaths? Violent crime actually increased in the UK after they banned guns despite near simultaneous expansion of police funding. These issues aren’t as simple as you might imply. The demographics of Sweden are different than those of Chicago or Matamoros. Conroe, Texas has very high gun ownership and very low violent crime. New York has very low gun ownership and relatively low violent crime. Cancer death rates are higher in the UK compared to the US despite “universal” healthcare in the UK. It’s naïve to draw simplistic cause-effect conclusions and it’s intellectually dishonest to suggest that policies that work in Lisbon would work at a similar level of success in Los Angeles. To be clear, I am all for decriminalization of drugs, however suggesting that policies will have similar effects in different regions or countries is to ignore the thousands of other variables at play.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Hmm - do you have a cite on your claims about the UK? It's hardly fair to ask for citations when you give none.
lerie82 9y ago
For the people including Marijuana in these arguments alongside METH and other hardcore MAN-MADE narcotics, maybe you forget that weed can basically grow anywhere, is a plant, and is not man-made. The article has a clear focus on heroin and meth (drug usage that can be associated with the sharing of needles) and not so much worried about Marijuana. Also, for those who may not know, just because you legalize a drug doesn't mean druggies will be in the workforce. Just because a drug is legal doesn't mean a company has to hire someone that does the drug. For example, I had my medical marijuana card in California, however, companies still denied me jobs when the pee came back dirty. No, we shouldn't copy Portugal's drug policies.
abtom 9y ago
> “There was a point whenyou could not find a single Portuguese family that wasn’t affected. Every family had their addict, or addicts. This was universal in a way that the society felt: ‘We have to do something.’” To be noted is when is it more useful to decriminalise, compared to conventional methods? I would say there is a point, say 5% or 10% population already users when it becomes more beneficial to decriminalise. This works because most of the society has already seen the problems associated with drug use. Anything before that (say 0.1% of population are users) and you may end up encouraging non-users since the legalisation may be seen as a form of approval from the state that there is nothing wrong with drug use.
- malydok 9y ago
  You seem to be confusing legalisation with decriminalisation. In the latter case the state stops incarcerating the offenders but doesn't stop discouraging drug use.
zaro 9y ago
In answering questions like that, like "X solves this big societal problem why don't we use X?" I think the reasons have little to do with the problem in question. It usually boils down to who profits from the current status quo.
Noos 9y ago
Probably because it would be a massive cost, on the level of a nationwide program to eliminate homelessness. And the portugal model doesn't seem to really wean people off drugs, unlike homelessness, so it's just endless money being funneled into maintaining addicts, which in time will keep growing since drug use is legal. We'd probably run out of money if we tried.
- DanBC 9y ago
  It costs considerably less than the current war on drugs, which is both expensive and ineffective.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Criminal justice in the western world is substantially based on the (faulty) premise of retributive punishment. Not rehabilitation, not harm reduction, vengeance. That has a ton of negative consequences. It means that prisons are horrid and destroy people rather than building them back up to a state worthy of re-entering civilized society. It means that the police are encouraged to dispense street justice extra-judicially (even up to executions) because it is part and parcel of the spectrum of "hurting the bad guys". It means that addicts are punished and harmed by the system for the sin of being vulnerable and falling victim to a common "vice". It's not about science, it's about feeling what is "right" and "just". Bit by bit we've occasionally made some improvements and injected some humanity into this brutally inhumane process, but we're still scraping by at medieval levels of justice. In the US more than 95% of executions by the criminal justice system happen on the street without a trial. And, of course, addiction is treated as a crime instead of a public health concern, to the detriment of all.
ssijak 9y ago
Making psychedelics schedule 1 is criminal in itself. Especially in the light of MAPS studies.
arca_vorago 9y ago
The nastier side of this elephant in the room is that three letters in general, the CIA in particular, really dislike the fact that congress holds their purse strings, so by creating and then dominating a black market, they can generate money off the books with no congressional oversight for those black projects and whatever other unconstitutional fad of the day is. The CIA learned this all the way back in its OSS days from the Brits who have been doing it since before the first opium wars in China, the scars of which which can still be seen to this day. It doesn't matter the black market (prohibition for example) just that you control it.
- angry_octet 9y ago
  This is a batshit crazy conspiracy theory comment. The CIA gets plenty of money in the black budget and full congressional approval. The problem isn't CIA accountability, their actions are the actions of the US Govt, but it is rare for the US Govt to suffer repercussions that the American people understand as stemming from the actions of its Govt.
  - tremon 9y ago
    it is rare for the US Govt to suffer repercussions that the American people understand as stemming from the actions of its Govt. Well, there's the current POTUS...
    - angry_octet 9y ago
      I think the fact that he enjoys continued support (in Congress# and among those who voted for him) amply demonstrates that many citizens do not comprehend the massive reduction in influence the US has suffered in only a year. # Call your representative.
WalterBright 9y ago
It's the sunk cost fallacy. When you've invested enormous amounts of treasure, careers, political capital, conventional wisdom, etc., in having a position, it is very, very hard to say "oops, that's all a big mistake, my bad!" It's much easier to double down on it.
- irritant 9y ago
  aka the yahoo effect
- TheArcane 9y ago
  Well it was done before during marijuana legislation.
- malydok 9y ago
  Especially in politics where keeping ones opinions is perceived as a sign of virtue, no matter how wrong these opinions are.
- workthrowaway27 9y ago
  This is probably the most correct answer.
adventured 9y ago
It's a rather silly question on the surface: all countries have different cultures. Often very different. That alone is enough to answer the posed question. Much of the world might copy it. It's not going to get copied overnight, that's not how big change occurs in a culture. Portugal was culturally ready for it. Things like this always start very slowly and then gain momentum. The US might even copy it given enough time, it will probably take two decades though. The US notoriously tends to slowly get around to things (although it did legalize gay marriage before ~96% of the rest of the planet). It goes back to the old joke about the US trying everything else first before finally doing the right thing, it's a partially accurate assessment of US history.
arcool 9y ago
I've visited Lisbon last week. I had at least 15 different guys offering me heroin, cocaine or LSD in various parts of the city. This never happened to me before but I didn't realise it used to be such a big problem. The point is, if someone wants to get drugs, he/she will just get drugs. I think the best prevention is awareness and I think this policy might have gotten them this far but they seem to need a different approach to go further.
- icebraining 9y ago
  FWIW, most of those are not selling actual drugs; they're just scamming tourists. For example, the hashish they sell is actually a pressed laurel plant. Not only it's much cheaper for them, as they avoid the cops, since it's not a crime to sell laurel even under a false name.
- devuo 9y ago
  Well... the thing is those guys really only approach foreigners. I am sorry for your experience, but as a nearly 30y old Portuguese who lives and works in Lisbon, I had that only happen to me once, and it was while speaking in English with a visiting friend.
- vlaaad 9y ago
  Can confirm, had a vacation in Portugal this spring and every day in a big cities (Lisbon, Porto) was offered drugs multiple times. Very unpleasant experience.
deleted 9y ago
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yznovyak 9y ago
Bullshit. Singapore's radical drug policy is also working extremely well. Why hasn't the world copied it? And to be fair, Singapore's drug policy has been working for a lot longer than Portugal's experiment.
- Marazan 9y ago
  One involves killing people and the other doesn't?
  - yznovyak 9y ago
    You can argue that heroin kills more people in one year than the government ever did.
    - Marazan 9y ago
      Well, then there's the issue that Singapore's approach doesn't actually stop drug abuse in Singapore.
      - yznovyak 9y ago
        Care to provide any source for your claim? Here's mine: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/by-country/ http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/b... Singapore has 0.18 drug related deaths per 100k population. With a population of ~5.6 million people this means 10 deaths per year for whole country. In comparison Portugal has 3x higher drug related death rate. Regarding executions you can check wikipedia: > However, since the 2010s, execution has become far less common, with some years having no executions at all.
        herbst 9y ago
        Clean water tests would be a better example for your point. Or something to that degree. Less death rate could just mean other preferred drugs or even just cleaner ones.
moduspol 9y ago
Singapore's radical drug policy has worked pretty well, too [1] [2]. Why hasn't the world copied that? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/05/singapore-policy-drugs-bay https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/05/singap... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567
- ilitirit 9y ago
  Is that really a "radical" policy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_drug_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_drug_tr...
- mikeash 9y ago
  Haven’t they? I thought a lot of countries had draconian anti-drug policies like that.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Yet they don't work as well as Singapore's? Hmm. Perhaps it's not as simple as "if it works here, it will work there."
    - mikeash 9y ago
      It’s never that simple, but we should examine and learn from what they do, and try it if it seems likely to work.
    - snarf21 9y ago
      I agree. Culture plays a role, especially in places like Singapore. Similarly (for good or bad) in the US, especially based on our history and Constitution.
Lapsa 9y ago
“What about you? Why don’t you go shave off that beard? You can’t give up on yourself, man. That’s when it’s all over.” The bearded man cracked a smile. ^ powerful stuff
rmchugh 9y ago
In regards to why it hasn't been copied, I have heard that part of the problem is that the UN officially supports the War on Drugs. European countries are reluctant to break ranks with the UN in this matter, while progress at the UN itself is held up by conservative countries such as Iran.
- Nursie 9y ago
  I don't think it's just Iran. I think the UK is firmly on the side of the WoD too. And yes, the UNGASS is a big part of the problem, it sets the international direction and it only meets every 10 years. When it does meet it puts out a statement, and these statements so far have been utterly silent on any and all harm reduction measures, instead sticking to the old rhetoric about prevention and enforcement.
- caio1982 9y ago
  Saying progress in the UN is held up by Iran and such sounds nonsense to me. The US is also pretty conservative and has way more influence and power inside their buildings.
  - rmchugh 9y ago
    I only have a friend's word for this (who works with drug policy), so if you know more please share. Obviously the US drug policy is quite varied, with full legalisation of marijauna in some states. The federal response to the opioid epidemic seems to be harm-reduction based rather than purely punitive. That said, this is internal politics, so what the US says and does on the world stage is not necessarily going to be consistent with this.
- herbst 9y ago
  For what I know the UN is also the reason that countries that culturally include marijuana banned it like India, Cambodia and Thailand.
partycoder 9y ago
This is the best perspective I have ever seen on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE This is a TED talk from Gabor Mate, a physician that works with drug addicts. The highlights from his perspective are: - Simple activities like watching television, gambling and shopping can be addictive, but most people will not develop an addition to them. - The most addictive drugs act on the dopamine and endorphin systems. The people developing the strongest addictions happen to be people that do not produce enough of their dopamine or endorphines so once they feel better than a regular person when consuming them externally.
callesgg 9y ago
Cause people are scared and uneducated.
galfarragem 9y ago
Disclaimer: this article was written by a Portuguese and Portuguese society is, on average, biased to Left. So take it with a grain of salt.
- rusk 9y ago
  and what a horrible place Portugal is as a result :-) The Portuguese dabbled with the right but about 40 years ago they decided to try it another way. What you have is remarkable political stability ever since. Maybe their economy isn't great but I've never met an unhappy or angry Portuguese person (No True Scotsmen notwithstanding of course!). Give me poverty over autocracy any day.
thedonkeycometh 9y ago
Amazed how quickly this thread devolved into Sex and guns.
11235813213455 9y ago
cigarette packets should just be much more expensive
ainiriand 9y ago
Spanish legislation is really much the same...
lanevorockz 9y ago
The reason why it works in Portugal is because the country is in a rolling crisis, they can't afford expensive drugs. Also, with most of the young people leaving they were left with a very Cristian and traditional country. I find it really absurd when newspapers attribute societal changes to single policies. The guard is so intellectually dishonest.
- isolli 9y ago
  Except the article precisely says that the change cannot be attributed to this single policy: > Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country. Intellectual dishonesty seems to be on your side, this time.
- galobtter 9y ago
  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 It's actually not drug use which has decreased all that much - it's actually "drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization." This obviously has nothing to do with the crisis.
PythonicAlpha 9y ago
It is well important to see, where we came from. I think it was in the beginning of the 20th century, where many drugs where legal and addicted people where thought of like alcoholics: People with a serious problem or ill people, not criminals. Than, came in politics and the "war on drugs" that really was a war against the consumers. First of Chinese people, than on colored people and than ... If you really want to fight a "war on drugs", fight the reasons, that let people start taking those things .... but that might cost some money on social projects ... and will give no big corporations money for building prisons.
gozur88 9y ago
I'm not a big fan of Portugal's drug policy. You can buy drugs and take drugs, but not deal them? So you still have much of the crime associated with distribution. I'd like to see drug use legalized (not "decriminalized") in the US, and I'd also like to see distribution handled by regulated retailers, so potency and quality are uniform.
- jowsie 9y ago
  The primary purpose isn't to fight organised crime. It's to create treatment opportunities for the people using the drugs. Decrease the demand and the rest of the system will decrease on its own.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    The article doesn't give any indication there was a decrease in drug use: > While drug-related death, incarceration and infection rates plummeted, the country still had to deal with the health complications of long-term problematic drug use.
known 9y ago
Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox
major505 9y ago
Each country needs to have its own thing. In Brazil for example, a measure like this wold not have any impact because we do not have control over our borders. Take smoking for example. Even if tabacco its alowed, its really expensive to buy legalized cigarrets. So peoplo just smoke cheap ones, that enter from Paraguai border, with no quality control, and brougth in Brazil by organized crime, or even produced in clandestine factories. Just legalizing everything here wold not make a diference.
- afsina 9y ago
  Governments heavily tax tobacco with the hope of lowering the associated health costs (and tax money is always juicy). But almost all the time it backfires and these happen: -People just keep smoking -It creates an economical burden in house holds with smokers because of the prices and difficulty of quitting -Smuggling or bad quality tobacco consumption increases. So, like most things government does, intervention with good intentions creates more problems. IMO, government should not interfere with it, and smokers should not get cheap health insurance (or none from government).
  - major505 9y ago
    I have to agree.
- flaviojuvenal 9y ago
  Smuggled tobacco is at most 30% of Brazilian market. Was 16% before 2011. If we had 70% of legalized marijuana, we would be much better. Source: https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2014/07/04/internas_economia,545454/contrabando-de-cigarro-cresce-e-produto-falsificado-ja-tem-30-do-mercado-brasileiro.shtml https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2014/07/04/intern...
  - major505 9y ago
    MAybe. Still, wold have to be taxed at least as much as cigarrets, and I don't think that people used to consume cheap pot would migrate to legalized one.
dep_b 9y ago
The interesting thing is that although the relative success with decriminalization of drugs in The Netherlands was one of the examples that inspired many other countries to liberalize their policies, The Netherlands itself did not make any progress at all in the last thirty years and even reversed some policies. Marijuana is still officially illegal, coffeeshops cannot run a 100% legal business and small growers have been systematically persecuted. Only big, criminally run enterprises remain with the typical organized crime problems as a result. It's no longer legal to amphetamines-related drugs at electronic parties and related drug-related deaths because of too strong or impure XTC are on a rise. Magic mushrooms are banned from sale because some tourists in Amsterdam had bad trips. And there was this story about a man slaughtering his dog that was awfully similar to those Marijuana stories in the 20's: https://www.expatica.com/nl/news/country-news/Man-kills-dog-while-on-mushrooms_147291.html https://www.expatica.com/nl/news/country-news/Man-kills-dog-..., amongst other "sudden" mushroom scare stories in the press. Although because of lack of actual knowledge about these kind of substances allowed the sale of magic truffels to continue everywhere where before the mushrooms were sold, the magic mushroom scare stories in the media suddenly stopped. It really saddens me that even more successful and better regulated policies from other countries are not followed in The Netherlands.
us7892 9y ago
tl;dr
marcoperaza 9y ago
Drug use is rising in Portugal. https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-Portugals-Great-Drug-Experiment https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-P... The Guardian skirts around the issue with some weasley phrasing “ensuing years saw dramatic drops in problematic drug use”. Problematic according to whom? Being a high functioning addict who claims to be fine does not mean that you don’t have a serious problem that is damaging your relationships and potential. How about the number of people living sober lives? That seems like at least as important a number. And to what extent is the continued illegality of selling drugs in Portugal keeping people away from drugs by virtue of wanting to avoid the shady characters who sell them? It seems likely that true legalization would lead to a massive increase in usage.
- galobtter 9y ago
  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 "drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization." from the guardian article "Portugal has seen dramatic drops in overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime." Problematic according to people dieing. Isn't getting the number of people dieing and getting diseases decreasing far more important than a rise in drug use?
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    It's a very important goal, but if you believe that drug use itself is corrosive to the culture and prosperity of a people, you might prioritize overall drug use. Let's take a hypothetical. Do you prefer a society where 30% have drug problems damaging themselves and their families, but there are very few overdose deaths and diseases among that 30%? Or one in which only 5% have drug problems, but there many more deaths and diseases among that 5%? I don't think there's an obviously right choice. Ideally we can thread the needle and lower drug usage in addition to reducing the harms associated with it. That's the trillion dollar policy question and I don't think anyone has solved it yet.
hmarques 9y ago
It's a shame that people, in 2017, see something that was implemented in 2000 as radical.
lr4444lr 9y ago
Thailand's policy of granting the police shoot-to-kill license against street pushers in the early years of the new millennium worked also. Why don't we copy that too, if lower metrics around overdoses and infections are sufficient motivation to make "radical" decisions?
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  Something about law, trial, human rights, western democracy. Pick any of the above and expand to prevent kill squads on the streets. Rodrigo Duterte is proving why that method is terrible in 2017.
  - scott_karana 9y ago
    I was under the impression that anyone in the Philippines was encouraged to kill drug dealers, which just masks culture/sectarian clashes? Police-only is much different. (Though still immoral IMO)
scott_karana 9y ago
Fundamentally, it's because it scares people too much. America isn't desperate enough, or brave enough, to try.
usrusr 9y ago
One reason (surely not the only one) why decriminalization is rarely talked about is that a large fraction of those who do not fall into the "war in drugs" camp are far too preoccupied talking about legalization. The fate of all middle ground positions. (Not to be confused with compromises, that are far too often the combination of the worst of each, because that somehow seems to help both sides to save face)
- adrusi 9y ago
  That's because decriminalization is a worst of both worlds option. It's not illegal to possess drugs so you see a bit of an uptick in usage, but the market is still unregulated so you have all the biggest problems remain: drugs being sold are adulterated (e.g. fentanyl), drug prices are way high because they're black market products (junkies are known to sacrifice everything they have, then steal from their family, then get kicked out of their family and steal from somewhere else in order to afford their drugs. The legal-market price of heroin is at least 10x smaller, meaning junkies won't have to become quite so decrepit, and won't be kicked out of their families, so they do that lose their support network). Without legalization, people who are curious about drugs have to interact with shady criminals to obtain them, which serves to involve them in crime. Decriminalization would probably cause the same uptick in usage as legalization would, but unlike legalization, it wouldn't make drug use less devastating to people's lives.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Sure, decriminalization of use leaves out all the supply side changes, but it makes it much easier getting or giving help with stopping a drug habit. But I do not agree with that "same uptick as legalization": when people don't start, they don't start because of fear of getting hooked, not because of fear of getting caught. Legalization comes with a much stronger "if it's not forbidden it can't be that dangerous" subtext than just decriminalization. The only real disadvantage of decriminalization is that you lose the occasional successful withdrawal after a "punishment or treatment, your choice" deal (happens all the time in a de facto but not de jure decriminalization environment), but since that is only the second best way to start withdrawal, maybe it is not much of a loss since it allows to focus resources on those who want to stop on their own initiative. (But in my experience with addicts, they all kind of wanted to stop and kind of did not, all the time, so there is always a base for external "inspiration" to work with)
jrs95 9y ago
Personally I like the conspiracy theory that the government likes using drug money to fund black ops. The less crazy but somewhat similar explanations are that institutions which enforce criminalization are resistant to change and don’t want to lose funding, and a large portion of the population still believes war on drugs propaganda.
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572 points by benbreen 9y ago

This is great. But I sometimes wonder if the people who advocate for "x worked for y, so it is best practice and every should do it" appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences?

Jedd 9y ago
> But I sometimes wonder if the people who advocate for "x worked for y, so it is best practice and every should do it" appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences? TFA touches on this, and I'd suggest that any in-depth, thoughtfully written piece on this subject would necessarily consider the complexities and cultural differences from one place to another -- especially if they're considering the question 'Why isn't this happening / why doesn't this work elsewhere?'. But often the answer to that question is well understood (the HN comments now - half an hour in - are somewhere on the cynical to pragmatic part of the spectrum) and also understood is why the problem is difficult, if not intractable. Apropos, from TFA: "But if conservative, isolationist, Catholic Portugal could transform into a country where same-sex marriage and abortion are legal, and where drug use is decriminalised, a broader shift in attitudes seems possible elsewhere." This is an optimistic sentiment from a social attitudes POV, but misses the financial incentives within the USA (for example) of retaining the current arrangement.
stretchwithme 9y ago
Which is why I'd prefer it if such decisions can be made very locally. It's easier to see the effect of a change if five counties in New Jersey make it and infant mortality soars compared to the rest of the state than if the entire country makes the change at once. And those counties can also revert to the old policy in less time than it takes to convince an entire country to repeal bad policy. We've made big changes in the past that turned out to be the wrong thing and it takes many years to correct. Prohibition, for example. Or deciding the entire country is going to allow leaded gasoline, instead of allowing cities like Philadelphia to ban it. It took another SEVENTY TWO YEARS to finally get it banned.
alkonaut 9y ago
> appreciate situation complexities and cultural differences? Laws come from culture but culture and attitudes also comes from laws. I agree these complexities can't be ignored, but when I argue (perhaps less bluntly) that e.g. "The US should just ban handguns and implement single payer healthcare because it obviously works everywhere else" Then what I mean is that with stricter gun laws, perhaps the culture and attitudes surrounding guns can be slowly changed. I'm not saying "if you change gun laws you'll see a positive effect on gun deaths within 5 years". I'm arguing that if the US changes gun laws perhaps there will be significant improvement in (just!) a couple of generations.

rectang 9y ago

Because moral vanity is more addictive and destructive than any chemical substance.

LoonyBalloony 9y ago
"The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats." - Aldous Huxley

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yosito 9y ago

Because drug policy is about associating your political opponents with criminal activity and has nothing to do with preventing drug abuse or addiction.

berbec 9y ago
I do believe you've hit the nail on the head there. It seems one of the big initial reasons for calling cannibis marijuana and criminalization was part of racist legislation against Hispanics. 'Numerous accounts say that "marijuana" came into popular usage in the U.S. in the early 20th century because anti-cannabis factions wanted to underscore the drug's "Mexican-ness."' [1] 1: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuana https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025...
- angry_octet 9y ago
  Exactly. Its dog whistle politics, portraying Hispanic and African American people as the major source of drug crime.
  - berbec 9y ago
    They are the major source of drug crime. We make sure to arrest more minorities for drug offences, therefore they must be the source. Ignore any spurious "facts" that show drug use and incarceration rates don't match! It must be the brown people.
- MrsPeaches 9y ago
  See also Opium and Chinese people at the turn of the 20th century. US has a long history of drugs policy being tightly integrated with racial politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/02/06/the-opium-exclusion-act-of-1909/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/02/06/the-opium-exclusion-...

brokenmachine 9y ago

Because the US prison industry policy is working as desired.

krisives 9y ago
Uniforms, food, beds, etc. all of very poor quality being sold at high margin. Policing for profit essentially.
- berbec 9y ago
  Dont forget the private, for-profit prisons themselves. If there ever was an industry that didn't need a profit motive...
badcede 9y ago
That doesn't explain the rest of the world.
- anm89 9y ago
  The US uses a couple tools to make US drug policy essentially world drug policy. Mainly trade agreements, military agreements(weapon sales and defense agreements), and economic aid. We attach riders to these agreements which make adoption of US drug law a condition of the deal. This is in first world countries. In the second and third world countries (the middle east and south america, and to a lesser but not negligible extent Africa) we just enforce our laws by force with or without permission.
  - badcede 9y ago
    That doesn't explain Portugal.

burntrelish1273 9y ago

Two reasons: 0. Military Indu$trial Complex 1. Moral-panicking Christian sociopaths hate poor people

log_base_login 9y ago
Not sure why you have to point at the members of the Christian religion as the culprit, when there are people of similarly zealous ilk in each and every religion besides Christianity. Certainly, Christianity has the majority stake of religion in the Western world, but this question is a global one, and I don't remember the last time a person was summarily executed for dealing drugs in a Christian country like one might find in Singapore, or their head cut off like one might find in certain Middle Eastern countries, or (again) killed, in certain African countries. Pointing a finger at a single group is unproductive when the desired outcome is a more comprehensively understanding, less punitive, and essentially more humanitarian solution for what is at issue. The real disconnect is that the people in power are not held to the same standard as those being sentenced. When was the last time you heard of a prosecuting attorney being drug tested before they could argue in court? What about a judge, or probation/parole/police officer? If there was some transparency in how ubiquitous drug use actually is, one might have some real leverage when seeking to implement more equitable (and therefore less punitive) legislation that provides fairer sentencing guidelines.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  > I don't remember the last time a person was summarily executed for dealing drugs in a Christian country like one might find in Singapore, or their head cut off like one might find in certain Middle Eastern countries, or (again) killed, in certain African countries. This is precisely what's happening in the Philippines, a predominantly Christian nation, and very devoutly so.
  - log_base_login 9y ago
    Fair point, I didn't realize that the Philippines were predominantly Christian. I really didn't want to go about defending Christianity necessarily, though I realize that is how the beginning of my comment turned out, but rather point to how we shouldn't generalize the problem into a certain religion being responsible for problem. Thanks for helping me understand the punitive issue in more detail.

beager 9y ago

So it’s apparent that many governments around the world are unwilling to take a similar approach to drug use. But could Google, Apple, Facebook et al provide services there? Create functionality to aid in harm reduction and addiction outreach? What would those things really look like, and would those companies actually leverage their access to billions of people to help with drug abuse?

deleted 9y ago
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freedomben 9y ago
While in this case I would agree with the action, I think it's kind of a dangerous thing to want our giant corporations undermining our government and laws, and imposing their own values in our society.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  Too late.
adamnemecek 9y ago
Pls no. Pls, really no. I really dont want any of those companies to even get anywhere near this.
- angry_octet 9y ago
  "Uber, but for illegal drugs."
deleted 9y ago
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palad1n 9y ago

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-n...

natural219 9y ago
Gotta love that URL. "War-on-drugs-racism-Nixon". For some reason I predict this link will shed more heat than light.
- jack9 9y ago
  History often has such an effect. People forego the truth in fear of the heat and deny there is any truth at all. The Damore problem.

sfRattan 9y ago

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair That's about it really. There are a whole lot of people across the world whose salaries depend on an unending drug war.

burntrelish1273 9y ago
Thank the gods someone else knows this quote. It explains a great deal about the sources of cognitive dissonance of wealth entitlement and conservative ideology: fundamental dishonesty in regards to the plight of other people and willful ignorance about existential survival issues like climate change. PS: modernizing it: It is difficult to get someone to understand something, when their salary, lifestyle or belief-system depends upon them not understanding it.
- sfRattan 9y ago
  Eh. I've always believed power and wealth interact with human nature at a lower level than ideology (to use a bit of a software metaphor). Relating Sinclair's observation to a particular contemporary political group or hot-button issue misses the forest for the trees.
meri_dian 9y ago
That thought doesn't really capture the reason. It applies in some circumstances but not this one. In a republic, people are only paid to enforce restrictive drug policy because the people want them to. Most people look at the issue in simple terms. "Drugs are bad, so keep them away from people". Legalization is a counterintuitive way to lower incidence of use and addiction, it will take a lot to convince people it is good for society. Edit: Blaming public support for restrictive drug policy on "media" and "politicians" puts the cart before the horse. Society often moves down the path of least resistance. Tough drug policy is appealing to people because it sounds logical. Therefore the elements of society that depend on the acceptance of the people - politicians, media, etc - also accept it and tow the line. Influencers do not exist in a vacuum. They are influenced by the prevailing mood just like everyone else.

ericand 9y ago

tl;dr: Portugal decriminalized drug-use and others are reluctant to do so. If you want a summary... Portugal overcame an opioid epidemic through an "enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself... The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more effectively to serve their communities." "Massive international cultural shifts in thinking about drugs and addiction are needed to make way for decriminalisation and legalisation globally. In the US, the White House has remained reluctant to address... but... one has to want the change in order to make it." I'm interested to hear ideas on how other countries can come to be less reluctant and want to change if anyone has any.

freedomben 9y ago

People fear the unknown. Also to most people drug culture is repugnant and they don't realize that only a small minority of users are "drug culture." In reality, most of the users are their neighbors, friends, and family members, and they have no idea it is happening. It's obviously quite a good deal for politicians. They get political victories by whipping a minority that can't fight back, and by stirring up angst among the ignorant. They also fuel the prison industrial complex, which I increasingly believe is a thing. My two cents.

thrden 9y ago

One thing that people aren't considering is that we have legalization experiments within the United States, and we have seen an uptick in marijuana usage[1]. This uptick has been benign because its been limited to Marijuana. I think that given our culture (one that I believe is potentially universal, but I can not speak to universality) has a tendency toward over consumption, its not clear to me that legalization of drugs would lead to decreased usage. I'm not advocating continuing our failed drug war, just caution when considering legalization, it may still be the best way forward. [1] http://www.rmhidta.org/html/FINAL%20NSDUH%20Results-%20Jan%202016%20Release.pdf http://www.rmhidta.org/html/FINAL%20NSDUH%20Results-%20Jan%2...

dkroy 9y ago
How has this affected tax revenue on these legalization experiments? How has this affected drug related crime as well? Is this increase bad? I would love for someone to dig up these answers as I have referenced Portugal's policy in many arguments, but never the ones we have been trying out here at home as they are newer and often more restrictive in comparison.
eberkund 9y ago
I haven't heard it argued that legalizing drugs would decrease usage. Just that it would lead to safer usage, reduce crime, destigmatize addiction and allow for better treatment of addicts.
- ht85 9y ago
  You're correct that addicts won't stop using because of decriminalization, but it does open new ways of helping those people. Instead of forcing them to hide, prosecuting, incarcerating and labeling them as undesirable members of society, you can create infrastructure and programs that could help many of them deal with their issues over time. Sometimes the hardest part of exiting addiction is that the only people who understand or tolerate you are other addicts, creating a very hard to escape circle.
fabrice_d 9y ago
The benefit of legalizing marijuana is not to decrease usage but to cut financing to dealers. It is also safer for users, and reduces the risk to exposure to more dangerous drugs.

froderick 9y ago

IME, human beings generally expect things that are true to be intuitive, and tend to interpret causality eagerly. The history of science is littered with folks that ended upon the wrong side of it because their intuition couldn't be rationalized (the earth _not_ being flat, for instance). It doesn't surprise me that many countries will be very slow to change. Change would require citizens to invest in understanding the research and to recognize that the "obvious" solutions to drug addiction aren't necessarily the effective ones.

bob_theslob646 9y ago

>Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country. The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more effectively to serve their communities. At least in the U.S, we thrive on _treating_ versus curing, plus , didn't you know if you fall on hard times medically especially with anything related to addiction or mental health, you have to bootstrap yourself up from your own bootstraps or go to a 5k a week rehab facility that does not accept insurance. If drugs are legal in the U.S, who is going to pay all those private jail/prison owners excutive salaries? Where are those corporations going to get the slave labor? Who is going to pay all those police officers all those raises for keeping drugs off the street? How are alcohol and tobacco companies supposed to find new consumers whose lives are ruined for possession of marijuana who are unable to secure any form of higher level of employment( extremely difficult) because they were arrested for carrying marijuana. That's why the United States has not copied it.

berbec 9y ago
Also, think of the extra mental effort to find ways to incarcerate minorities and the lower class! We can't have our justice system burning out their brains.
freddie_mercury 9y ago
The fact that things work differently outside of the US yet most foreign countries still haven't adopted it suggests that none of your purported reasons are the primary cause. They almost certainly are tiny things with very small marginal contributions when countries as varied as Russia, Australia, Sweden, Poland, Singapore, and Switzerland -- who don't have of the factors you mention -- also have failed to follow Portugal's innovation.

anm89 9y ago

Because the goals of US drug policy have nothing to do with public health outcomes or justice by any metric. US drug policy is incredibly effective at the things it is designed to do,which are keeping prisons full and police budgets enormous. Why would we change a policy which is already perfect?

andrewstuart 9y ago

Portugal’s policy is deeply flawed because it does not legalize the sale of all drugs, only the consumption. When selling is legal is when organized crime leaves the picture, taxes can be collected, product is clean and measured and of quality. Both sides of the equation are important to legalize, doing one without the other means huge problems remain.

toomanybeersies 9y ago
I don't think that something as harmful as heroin should be legal to sell, even in a taxed and regulated scenario. Other options that, in my amateur opinion, would be better, would be to more heavily penalise adultered drugs, or to have pharmacies supply, with a prescription, addictive drugs, but only to addicts. The latter idea is basically an extension of safe injection clinics.
- rblatz 9y ago
  There are multiple drugs of the same class as heroin that are actually stronger and more dangerous than heroin that are legal. But they aren’t sold cut to hell with fillers in order to make extra money.
  - eitland 9y ago
    They are also only sold with a prescription. And while I know US has an opioid crisis this prescription thing seems to work here.
    - justrobert 9y ago
      Except anyone can buy fent online easily. Far more dangerous for anyone who is near those that buy it.
      - apexalpha 9y ago
        Except people don't here.

adeshpande 9y ago

Chasing The Scream by Johann Hari is a really good book for anyone who's more interested on learning more about how Portugal went about the decriminalization and just a really interesting book in general on the war on drugs.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of people that say it's going to cause the corruption of society, or ruin the sanctity of marriage, or cause God to punish us. However, legalising gay marriage in other countries hasn't caused the sky to fall. But anti-gay marriage people conveniently ignore this. The same wilful ignorance of existing examples is also applied to Universal Healthcare, drug laws, minimum wages (for either raising or lowering/removing), criminal justice, firearms, and education. Obviously countries are all different, but the general ideas are the same. For example, it's fairly well established that the less guns there are, the less gun crime there is, however, an Australia or British-style "ban handguns and buy them back off owners" isn't going to work in America. But the same principle applies, less handguns = less deaths.

briandear 9y ago
Any citation on fewer handguns, fewer deaths? Violent crime actually increased in the UK after they banned guns despite near simultaneous expansion of police funding. These issues aren’t as simple as you might imply. The demographics of Sweden are different than those of Chicago or Matamoros. Conroe, Texas has very high gun ownership and very low violent crime. New York has very low gun ownership and relatively low violent crime. Cancer death rates are higher in the UK compared to the US despite “universal” healthcare in the UK. It’s naïve to draw simplistic cause-effect conclusions and it’s intellectually dishonest to suggest that policies that work in Lisbon would work at a similar level of success in Los Angeles. To be clear, I am all for decriminalization of drugs, however suggesting that policies will have similar effects in different regions or countries is to ignore the thousands of other variables at play.
- r00fus 9y ago
  Hmm - do you have a cite on your claims about the UK? It's hardly fair to ask for citations when you give none.

lerie82 9y ago

For the people including Marijuana in these arguments alongside METH and other hardcore MAN-MADE narcotics, maybe you forget that weed can basically grow anywhere, is a plant, and is not man-made. The article has a clear focus on heroin and meth (drug usage that can be associated with the sharing of needles) and not so much worried about Marijuana. Also, for those who may not know, just because you legalize a drug doesn't mean druggies will be in the workforce. Just because a drug is legal doesn't mean a company has to hire someone that does the drug. For example, I had my medical marijuana card in California, however, companies still denied me jobs when the pee came back dirty. No, we shouldn't copy Portugal's drug policies.

abtom 9y ago

> “There was a point whenyou could not find a single Portuguese family that wasn’t affected. Every family had their addict, or addicts. This was universal in a way that the society felt: ‘We have to do something.’” To be noted is when is it more useful to decriminalise, compared to conventional methods? I would say there is a point, say 5% or 10% population already users when it becomes more beneficial to decriminalise. This works because most of the society has already seen the problems associated with drug use. Anything before that (say 0.1% of population are users) and you may end up encouraging non-users since the legalisation may be seen as a form of approval from the state that there is nothing wrong with drug use.

malydok 9y ago
You seem to be confusing legalisation with decriminalisation. In the latter case the state stops incarcerating the offenders but doesn't stop discouraging drug use.

zaro 9y ago

In answering questions like that, like "X solves this big societal problem why don't we use X?" I think the reasons have little to do with the problem in question. It usually boils down to who profits from the current status quo.

Noos 9y ago

Probably because it would be a massive cost, on the level of a nationwide program to eliminate homelessness. And the portugal model doesn't seem to really wean people off drugs, unlike homelessness, so it's just endless money being funneled into maintaining addicts, which in time will keep growing since drug use is legal. We'd probably run out of money if we tried.

DanBC 9y ago
It costs considerably less than the current war on drugs, which is both expensive and ineffective.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

Criminal justice in the western world is substantially based on the (faulty) premise of retributive punishment. Not rehabilitation, not harm reduction, vengeance. That has a ton of negative consequences. It means that prisons are horrid and destroy people rather than building them back up to a state worthy of re-entering civilized society. It means that the police are encouraged to dispense street justice extra-judicially (even up to executions) because it is part and parcel of the spectrum of "hurting the bad guys". It means that addicts are punished and harmed by the system for the sin of being vulnerable and falling victim to a common "vice". It's not about science, it's about feeling what is "right" and "just". Bit by bit we've occasionally made some improvements and injected some humanity into this brutally inhumane process, but we're still scraping by at medieval levels of justice. In the US more than 95% of executions by the criminal justice system happen on the street without a trial. And, of course, addiction is treated as a crime instead of a public health concern, to the detriment of all.

ssijak 9y ago

Making psychedelics schedule 1 is criminal in itself. Especially in the light of MAPS studies.

arca_vorago 9y ago

The nastier side of this elephant in the room is that three letters in general, the CIA in particular, really dislike the fact that congress holds their purse strings, so by creating and then dominating a black market, they can generate money off the books with no congressional oversight for those black projects and whatever other unconstitutional fad of the day is. The CIA learned this all the way back in its OSS days from the Brits who have been doing it since before the first opium wars in China, the scars of which which can still be seen to this day. It doesn't matter the black market (prohibition for example) just that you control it.

angry_octet 9y ago
This is a batshit crazy conspiracy theory comment. The CIA gets plenty of money in the black budget and full congressional approval. The problem isn't CIA accountability, their actions are the actions of the US Govt, but it is rare for the US Govt to suffer repercussions that the American people understand as stemming from the actions of its Govt.
- tremon 9y ago
  it is rare for the US Govt to suffer repercussions that the American people understand as stemming from the actions of its Govt. Well, there's the current POTUS...
  - angry_octet 9y ago
    I think the fact that he enjoys continued support (in Congress# and among those who voted for him) amply demonstrates that many citizens do not comprehend the massive reduction in influence the US has suffered in only a year. # Call your representative.

WalterBright 9y ago

It's the sunk cost fallacy. When you've invested enormous amounts of treasure, careers, political capital, conventional wisdom, etc., in having a position, it is very, very hard to say "oops, that's all a big mistake, my bad!" It's much easier to double down on it.

irritant 9y ago
aka the yahoo effect
TheArcane 9y ago
Well it was done before during marijuana legislation.
malydok 9y ago
Especially in politics where keeping ones opinions is perceived as a sign of virtue, no matter how wrong these opinions are.
workthrowaway27 9y ago
This is probably the most correct answer.

adventured 9y ago

It's a rather silly question on the surface: all countries have different cultures. Often very different. That alone is enough to answer the posed question. Much of the world might copy it. It's not going to get copied overnight, that's not how big change occurs in a culture. Portugal was culturally ready for it. Things like this always start very slowly and then gain momentum. The US might even copy it given enough time, it will probably take two decades though. The US notoriously tends to slowly get around to things (although it did legalize gay marriage before ~96% of the rest of the planet). It goes back to the old joke about the US trying everything else first before finally doing the right thing, it's a partially accurate assessment of US history.

arcool 9y ago

I've visited Lisbon last week. I had at least 15 different guys offering me heroin, cocaine or LSD in various parts of the city. This never happened to me before but I didn't realise it used to be such a big problem. The point is, if someone wants to get drugs, he/she will just get drugs. I think the best prevention is awareness and I think this policy might have gotten them this far but they seem to need a different approach to go further.

icebraining 9y ago
FWIW, most of those are not selling actual drugs; they're just scamming tourists. For example, the hashish they sell is actually a pressed laurel plant. Not only it's much cheaper for them, as they avoid the cops, since it's not a crime to sell laurel even under a false name.
devuo 9y ago
Well... the thing is those guys really only approach foreigners. I am sorry for your experience, but as a nearly 30y old Portuguese who lives and works in Lisbon, I had that only happen to me once, and it was while speaking in English with a visiting friend.
vlaaad 9y ago
Can confirm, had a vacation in Portugal this spring and every day in a big cities (Lisbon, Porto) was offered drugs multiple times. Very unpleasant experience.

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yznovyak 9y ago

Bullshit. Singapore's radical drug policy is also working extremely well. Why hasn't the world copied it? And to be fair, Singapore's drug policy has been working for a lot longer than Portugal's experiment.

Marazan 9y ago
One involves killing people and the other doesn't?
- yznovyak 9y ago
  You can argue that heroin kills more people in one year than the government ever did.
  - Marazan 9y ago
    Well, then there's the issue that Singapore's approach doesn't actually stop drug abuse in Singapore.
    - yznovyak 9y ago
      Care to provide any source for your claim? Here's mine: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/by-country/ http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/drug-use/b... Singapore has 0.18 drug related deaths per 100k population. With a population of ~5.6 million people this means 10 deaths per year for whole country. In comparison Portugal has 3x higher drug related death rate. Regarding executions you can check wikipedia: > However, since the 2010s, execution has become far less common, with some years having no executions at all.
      - herbst 9y ago
        Clean water tests would be a better example for your point. Or something to that degree. Less death rate could just mean other preferred drugs or even just cleaner ones.

moduspol 9y ago

Singapore's radical drug policy has worked pretty well, too [1] [2]. Why hasn't the world copied that? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/05/singapore-policy-drugs-bay https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/05/singap... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567

ilitirit 9y ago
Is that really a "radical" policy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_drug_trafficking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_drug_tr...
mikeash 9y ago
Haven’t they? I thought a lot of countries had draconian anti-drug policies like that.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Yet they don't work as well as Singapore's? Hmm. Perhaps it's not as simple as "if it works here, it will work there."
  - mikeash 9y ago
    It’s never that simple, but we should examine and learn from what they do, and try it if it seems likely to work.
  - snarf21 9y ago
    I agree. Culture plays a role, especially in places like Singapore. Similarly (for good or bad) in the US, especially based on our history and Constitution.

Lapsa 9y ago

“What about you? Why don’t you go shave off that beard? You can’t give up on yourself, man. That’s when it’s all over.” The bearded man cracked a smile. ^ powerful stuff

rmchugh 9y ago

In regards to why it hasn't been copied, I have heard that part of the problem is that the UN officially supports the War on Drugs. European countries are reluctant to break ranks with the UN in this matter, while progress at the UN itself is held up by conservative countries such as Iran.

Nursie 9y ago
I don't think it's just Iran. I think the UK is firmly on the side of the WoD too. And yes, the UNGASS is a big part of the problem, it sets the international direction and it only meets every 10 years. When it does meet it puts out a statement, and these statements so far have been utterly silent on any and all harm reduction measures, instead sticking to the old rhetoric about prevention and enforcement.
caio1982 9y ago
Saying progress in the UN is held up by Iran and such sounds nonsense to me. The US is also pretty conservative and has way more influence and power inside their buildings.
- rmchugh 9y ago
  I only have a friend's word for this (who works with drug policy), so if you know more please share. Obviously the US drug policy is quite varied, with full legalisation of marijauna in some states. The federal response to the opioid epidemic seems to be harm-reduction based rather than purely punitive. That said, this is internal politics, so what the US says and does on the world stage is not necessarily going to be consistent with this.
herbst 9y ago
For what I know the UN is also the reason that countries that culturally include marijuana banned it like India, Cambodia and Thailand.

partycoder 9y ago

This is the best perspective I have ever seen on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE This is a TED talk from Gabor Mate, a physician that works with drug addicts. The highlights from his perspective are: - Simple activities like watching television, gambling and shopping can be addictive, but most people will not develop an addition to them. - The most addictive drugs act on the dopamine and endorphin systems. The people developing the strongest addictions happen to be people that do not produce enough of their dopamine or endorphines so once they feel better than a regular person when consuming them externally.

callesgg 9y ago

Cause people are scared and uneducated.

galfarragem 9y ago

Disclaimer: this article was written by a Portuguese and Portuguese society is, on average, biased to Left. So take it with a grain of salt.

rusk 9y ago
and what a horrible place Portugal is as a result :-) The Portuguese dabbled with the right but about 40 years ago they decided to try it another way. What you have is remarkable political stability ever since. Maybe their economy isn't great but I've never met an unhappy or angry Portuguese person (No True Scotsmen notwithstanding of course!). Give me poverty over autocracy any day.

thedonkeycometh 9y ago

Amazed how quickly this thread devolved into Sex and guns.

11235813213455 9y ago

cigarette packets should just be much more expensive

ainiriand 9y ago

Spanish legislation is really much the same...

lanevorockz 9y ago

The reason why it works in Portugal is because the country is in a rolling crisis, they can't afford expensive drugs. Also, with most of the young people leaving they were left with a very Cristian and traditional country. I find it really absurd when newspapers attribute societal changes to single policies. The guard is so intellectually dishonest.

isolli 9y ago
Except the article precisely says that the change cannot be attributed to this single policy: > Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country. Intellectual dishonesty seems to be on your side, this time.
galobtter 9y ago
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 It's actually not drug use which has decreased all that much - it's actually "drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization." This obviously has nothing to do with the crisis.

PythonicAlpha 9y ago

It is well important to see, where we came from. I think it was in the beginning of the 20th century, where many drugs where legal and addicted people where thought of like alcoholics: People with a serious problem or ill people, not criminals. Than, came in politics and the "war on drugs" that really was a war against the consumers. First of Chinese people, than on colored people and than ... If you really want to fight a "war on drugs", fight the reasons, that let people start taking those things .... but that might cost some money on social projects ... and will give no big corporations money for building prisons.

gozur88 9y ago

I'm not a big fan of Portugal's drug policy. You can buy drugs and take drugs, but not deal them? So you still have much of the crime associated with distribution. I'd like to see drug use legalized (not "decriminalized") in the US, and I'd also like to see distribution handled by regulated retailers, so potency and quality are uniform.

jowsie 9y ago
The primary purpose isn't to fight organised crime. It's to create treatment opportunities for the people using the drugs. Decrease the demand and the rest of the system will decrease on its own.
- gozur88 9y ago
  The article doesn't give any indication there was a decrease in drug use: > While drug-related death, incarceration and infection rates plummeted, the country still had to deal with the health complications of long-term problematic drug use.

known 9y ago

Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox

major505 9y ago

Each country needs to have its own thing. In Brazil for example, a measure like this wold not have any impact because we do not have control over our borders. Take smoking for example. Even if tabacco its alowed, its really expensive to buy legalized cigarrets. So peoplo just smoke cheap ones, that enter from Paraguai border, with no quality control, and brougth in Brazil by organized crime, or even produced in clandestine factories. Just legalizing everything here wold not make a diference.

afsina 9y ago
Governments heavily tax tobacco with the hope of lowering the associated health costs (and tax money is always juicy). But almost all the time it backfires and these happen: -People just keep smoking -It creates an economical burden in house holds with smokers because of the prices and difficulty of quitting -Smuggling or bad quality tobacco consumption increases. So, like most things government does, intervention with good intentions creates more problems. IMO, government should not interfere with it, and smokers should not get cheap health insurance (or none from government).
- major505 9y ago
  I have to agree.
flaviojuvenal 9y ago
Smuggled tobacco is at most 30% of Brazilian market. Was 16% before 2011. If we had 70% of legalized marijuana, we would be much better. Source: https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2014/07/04/internas_economia,545454/contrabando-de-cigarro-cresce-e-produto-falsificado-ja-tem-30-do-mercado-brasileiro.shtml https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/economia/2014/07/04/intern...
- major505 9y ago
  MAybe. Still, wold have to be taxed at least as much as cigarrets, and I don't think that people used to consume cheap pot would migrate to legalized one.

dep_b 9y ago

The interesting thing is that although the relative success with decriminalization of drugs in The Netherlands was one of the examples that inspired many other countries to liberalize their policies, The Netherlands itself did not make any progress at all in the last thirty years and even reversed some policies. Marijuana is still officially illegal, coffeeshops cannot run a 100% legal business and small growers have been systematically persecuted. Only big, criminally run enterprises remain with the typical organized crime problems as a result. It's no longer legal to amphetamines-related drugs at electronic parties and related drug-related deaths because of too strong or impure XTC are on a rise. Magic mushrooms are banned from sale because some tourists in Amsterdam had bad trips. And there was this story about a man slaughtering his dog that was awfully similar to those Marijuana stories in the 20's: https://www.expatica.com/nl/news/country-news/Man-kills-dog-while-on-mushrooms_147291.html https://www.expatica.com/nl/news/country-news/Man-kills-dog-..., amongst other "sudden" mushroom scare stories in the press. Although because of lack of actual knowledge about these kind of substances allowed the sale of magic truffels to continue everywhere where before the mushrooms were sold, the magic mushroom scare stories in the media suddenly stopped. It really saddens me that even more successful and better regulated policies from other countries are not followed in The Netherlands.

us7892 9y ago

tl;dr

marcoperaza 9y ago

Drug use is rising in Portugal. https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-Portugals-Great-Drug-Experiment https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-P... The Guardian skirts around the issue with some weasley phrasing “ensuing years saw dramatic drops in problematic drug use”. Problematic according to whom? Being a high functioning addict who claims to be fine does not mean that you don’t have a serious problem that is damaging your relationships and potential. How about the number of people living sober lives? That seems like at least as important a number. And to what extent is the continued illegality of selling drugs in Portugal keeping people away from drugs by virtue of wanting to avoid the shady characters who sell them? It seems likely that true legalization would lead to a massive increase in usage.

galobtter 9y ago
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 "drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization." from the guardian article "Portugal has seen dramatic drops in overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime." Problematic according to people dieing. Isn't getting the number of people dieing and getting diseases decreasing far more important than a rise in drug use?
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  It's a very important goal, but if you believe that drug use itself is corrosive to the culture and prosperity of a people, you might prioritize overall drug use. Let's take a hypothetical. Do you prefer a society where 30% have drug problems damaging themselves and their families, but there are very few overdose deaths and diseases among that 30%? Or one in which only 5% have drug problems, but there many more deaths and diseases among that 5%? I don't think there's an obviously right choice. Ideally we can thread the needle and lower drug usage in addition to reducing the harms associated with it. That's the trillion dollar policy question and I don't think anyone has solved it yet.

hmarques 9y ago

It's a shame that people, in 2017, see something that was implemented in 2000 as radical.

lr4444lr 9y ago

Thailand's policy of granting the police shoot-to-kill license against street pushers in the early years of the new millennium worked also. Why don't we copy that too, if lower metrics around overdoses and infections are sufficient motivation to make "radical" decisions?

swarnie_ 9y ago
Something about law, trial, human rights, western democracy. Pick any of the above and expand to prevent kill squads on the streets. Rodrigo Duterte is proving why that method is terrible in 2017.
- scott_karana 9y ago
  I was under the impression that anyone in the Philippines was encouraged to kill drug dealers, which just masks culture/sectarian clashes? Police-only is much different. (Though still immoral IMO)

scott_karana 9y ago

Fundamentally, it's because it scares people too much. America isn't desperate enough, or brave enough, to try.

usrusr 9y ago

One reason (surely not the only one) why decriminalization is rarely talked about is that a large fraction of those who do not fall into the "war in drugs" camp are far too preoccupied talking about legalization. The fate of all middle ground positions. (Not to be confused with compromises, that are far too often the combination of the worst of each, because that somehow seems to help both sides to save face)

adrusi 9y ago
That's because decriminalization is a worst of both worlds option. It's not illegal to possess drugs so you see a bit of an uptick in usage, but the market is still unregulated so you have all the biggest problems remain: drugs being sold are adulterated (e.g. fentanyl), drug prices are way high because they're black market products (junkies are known to sacrifice everything they have, then steal from their family, then get kicked out of their family and steal from somewhere else in order to afford their drugs. The legal-market price of heroin is at least 10x smaller, meaning junkies won't have to become quite so decrepit, and won't be kicked out of their families, so they do that lose their support network). Without legalization, people who are curious about drugs have to interact with shady criminals to obtain them, which serves to involve them in crime. Decriminalization would probably cause the same uptick in usage as legalization would, but unlike legalization, it wouldn't make drug use less devastating to people's lives.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Sure, decriminalization of use leaves out all the supply side changes, but it makes it much easier getting or giving help with stopping a drug habit. But I do not agree with that "same uptick as legalization": when people don't start, they don't start because of fear of getting hooked, not because of fear of getting caught. Legalization comes with a much stronger "if it's not forbidden it can't be that dangerous" subtext than just decriminalization. The only real disadvantage of decriminalization is that you lose the occasional successful withdrawal after a "punishment or treatment, your choice" deal (happens all the time in a de facto but not de jure decriminalization environment), but since that is only the second best way to start withdrawal, maybe it is not much of a loss since it allows to focus resources on those who want to stop on their own initiative. (But in my experience with addicts, they all kind of wanted to stop and kind of did not, all the time, so there is always a base for external "inspiration" to work with)

jrs95 9y ago

Personally I like the conspiracy theory that the government likes using drug money to fund black ops. The less crazy but somewhat similar explanations are that institutions which enforce criminalization are resistant to change and don’t want to lose funding, and a large portion of the population still believes war on drugs propaganda.

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