4 ms·

I'm curious if there was any evidence of people moving to Portugal after they decriminalized things? Or any evidence of people moving to avoid the law when it c

I'm curious if there was any evidence of people moving to Portugal after they decriminalized things? Or any evidence of people moving to avoid the law when it comes to drugs like this. It probably won't be 1-1 b/c of language barriers. I don't have as much experience with addicted users but my understanding is that they tend to stay closer to their remaining social networks. Moving to a new state just to avoid criminalization seems like a lot.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
Immigration to a new country is a whole lot more onerous than just moving to a different state. If I used hard drugs, I 100% would consider moving to a different state if it meant avoiding jailtime and a record.
- flukus 6y ago
  > Immigration to a new country is a whole lot more onerous than just moving to a different state. Not within the EU. It's not quite as easy as moving between US states but it's not far off.
  - tluyben2 6y ago
    Yep, I did it many times by now, it takes literally a few hours in the countries I moved between, paperwork wise.
tluyben2 6y ago
Portugal did not make much of a difference as you can privately use in many EU countries for a long time already. In the Netherlands, in the 80s, we used to hear about drug tourism and that made us think it was all very strict in neighbouring countries, but when old enough to go there (germany, belgium, france, spain) to campsites etc, we saw it was everywhere and the cops only take action on dealers. In Spain, at least where I always go, almost everyone under 50 smokes weed in public, most drink and many do cocaine in the weekends. There is no violent crime (some break-ins in holiday homes, but those are rare enough that when it happens everyone knows about it) and you can get your fix everywhere even with the Guardia around. Practically, you won’t have too much issues in most of EU so PT did not change much.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

Immigration to a new country is a whole lot more onerous than just moving to a different state. If I used hard drugs, I 100% would consider moving to a different state if it meant avoiding jailtime and a record.

flukus 6y ago
> Immigration to a new country is a whole lot more onerous than just moving to a different state. Not within the EU. It's not quite as easy as moving between US states but it's not far off.
- tluyben2 6y ago
  Yep, I did it many times by now, it takes literally a few hours in the countries I moved between, paperwork wise.

tluyben2 6y ago

Portugal did not make much of a difference as you can privately use in many EU countries for a long time already. In the Netherlands, in the 80s, we used to hear about drug tourism and that made us think it was all very strict in neighbouring countries, but when old enough to go there (germany, belgium, france, spain) to campsites etc, we saw it was everywhere and the cops only take action on dealers. In Spain, at least where I always go, almost everyone under 50 smokes weed in public, most drink and many do cocaine in the weekends. There is no violent crime (some break-ins in holiday homes, but those are rare enough that when it happens everyone knows about it) and you can get your fix everywhere even with the Guardia around. Practically, you won’t have too much issues in most of EU so PT did not change much.