I guess it's a state of mind of "doing something". If you do what Portugal is doing and your numbers are the same than others, it feels natural to think that if

I guess it's a state of mind of "doing something". If you do what Portugal is doing and your numbers are the same than others, it feels natural to think that if you do something things will improve. Then you do something like criminalize drug users, numbers get worse, but now you can claim is all fault of drug users for doing something illegal. You are doing "something", but they don't cooperate.