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Also from the article > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.

Also from the article > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by the state to nonprofit groups, including the street teams that engage with people who use drugs. You'll notice that 2012 comes before 2019.

Izkata 3y ago
That's talking about a spike between 2019 and 2023. Why did it take nearly a decade to happen, then happen all at once? Seems like something else changed more recently than the funding in 2012.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > Why did it take nearly a decade to happen, then happen all at once? Well, by that logic clearly decriminalization wasn't the cause. Why would the negative effect take nearly two decades to happen, then happen all at once? Seems like something else changed more recently than the decriminalization in 2001. ---- Snarkiness aside, I find these discussions on HN to be mostly pointless and circular, precisely for this reason. There's very little actually substantive discussion happening under this article. A trend was noticed, one side has an explanation, the other side says "nah, I don't think that's it" and then we go in circles saying "hmmm... doesn't sound convincing to me" and meme a bit about Singapore and Seattle. It's HN at its worst. That this comment exists almost immediately after another comment further upstream saying "well, of course we wouldn't expect to see the negative effects of decriminalization immediately" to me sums up how entirely arbitrary online arguments about decriminalization often are.