6 ms·

Excerpt from that article: "Experts argue that drug policy focused on jail time is still more harmful to society than decriminalization. While the slipping res

Excerpt from that article: "Experts argue that drug policy focused on jail time is still more harmful to society than decriminalization. While the slipping results here suggest the fragility of decriminalization’s benefits, they point to how funding and encouragement into rehabilitation programs have ebbed. The number of users being funneled into drug treatment in Portugal, for instance, has sharply fallen, going from a peak of 1,150 in 2015 to 352 in 2021, the most recent year available." It did work well. It doesn't now. What changed in between then and now is funding and commitment to getting addicts into treatment-- the founding principle of the program to begin with.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
The interesting metric would be the percentage of addicts that were treated and went on to be “productive” or at least not using for at least x, y, and z years, and probabilities of relapse.
- chefandy 3y ago
  It may well exist. The initial policy went into effect in 2001.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I have never seen it advertised, and if it were impressive, I cannot imagine why it would not be advertised.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      Why do you need the statistic? You seem to have already reached a conclusion. Have you looked at related statistics to inform your perspective?
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        No, I have not seen related statistics. I need the statistic because I do not see any other way to evaluate whether or not treatment is cost effective. I have reached a conclusion that in order to evaluate the “success” of Portugal’s policies and how they can translate to other places, then I would like to know what kind of addictions it succeeded for and for what proportion of people and for which addictions.
        chefandy 3y ago
        Wikipedia is a good source for sources.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        A lot of countries have given up on curing addiction. Finland, for example, just gives homeless addicts housing with a social worker supervising, with the idea that their behavior will continue but giving them housing is cheaper than the public services they would consume otherwise. Success isn't necessarily quantified in how much addiction is cured. A lot of chronic drug addiction cases are simply written off (they will never be productive again).
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
That is just one perspective from the article, not a consensus, and definitely nothing that could qualify as famous, and even then the argument is along the lines of "It was successful until we stop dumping lots of money into it." That reminds of how Salt Lake City recently found out the same thing with its success in curing homelessness. The problem never ends.
- 310260 3y ago
  What are you trying to say here though? The money is more important than people being rehabilitated? Not everything scales well. Sometimes you just have to spend to fix.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    > Not everything scales well. Sometimes you just have to spend to fix. I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? Those asks cannot coexist: if drug abuse is costing society billions or trillions of dollars in resources to fix, why do we allow it in the first place? > The money is more important than people being rehabilitated? I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. Eventually, they have to take responsibility for their own choices, especially if we have allowed that choice (if you think drug crime is victimless so shouldn't be punished is true).
    - chefandy 3y ago
      > I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? > I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. It looks like you don't understand which part you don't actually get. While Portugal's program was being funded properly, the increase in drug usage was no different from nearby countries that did not change their drug laws. Teen marijuana usage was 1/3 what it was in the US at the time. But what about the cost? Well, it seems to have saved a boatload of money on enforcement. “The most important direct effect was a reduction in the use of criminal justice resources targeted at vulnerable drug users,” says Alex Stevens, professor of criminal justice at the U.K.’s University of Kent, who co-authored the study. “Before, a large number of people were being arrested and punished for drug use alone. They saved themselves a lot of money and stopped inflicting so much harm on people through the criminal justice system. There were other trends since drugs were decriminalized in 2001, but they are less easy to attribute directly to decriminalization.” https://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/portugals-drug-experience-new-study-confirms-decriminalization-was-a-success/ https://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/portugals-drug-experi... The hippies over at Forbes seem to think that ending canabis prohibition will help the US recover economically from the pandemic like ending alcohol prohibition helped end the great depression. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-legalization-is-key-to-economic-recovery-much-like-ending-alcohol-prohibition-helped-us-out-of-the-great-depression/?sh=31ceee4a3241 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-l... But what about the collateral damage of all this rampant treating-instead-of-imprisoning-people-for-drug-use? Well, The International Journal of Drug Policy said: "Taking into consideration health and non-health related costs, we find that that the social cost of drugs decreased by 12% in the five years following the NSFAD's approval and by a rather significant 18% in the eleven-year period following its approval. Whilst the reduction of legal system costs (possibly associated with the decriminalization of drug consumption) is clearly one of the main explanatory factors, it is not the only one. In particular, the rather significant reduction of health-related costs has also played an important role." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095539591400231X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553... Surely the stalwart right-wing CATO institute will set the record straight on the fallout from such an irresponsible policy: "While drug addiction, usage, and associated pathologies continue to skyrocket in many EU states, those problems—in virtually every relevant category—have been either contained or measurably improved within Portugal since 2001. In certain key demographic segments, drug usage has decreased in absolute terms in the decriminalization framework, even as usage across the EU continues to increase, including in those states that continue to take the hardest line in criminalizing drug possession and usage." Yep, they did. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald...

lotsofpulp 3y ago

The interesting metric would be the percentage of addicts that were treated and went on to be “productive” or at least not using for at least x, y, and z years, and probabilities of relapse.

chefandy 3y ago
It may well exist. The initial policy went into effect in 2001.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I have never seen it advertised, and if it were impressive, I cannot imagine why it would not be advertised.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Why do you need the statistic? You seem to have already reached a conclusion. Have you looked at related statistics to inform your perspective?
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      No, I have not seen related statistics. I need the statistic because I do not see any other way to evaluate whether or not treatment is cost effective. I have reached a conclusion that in order to evaluate the “success” of Portugal’s policies and how they can translate to other places, then I would like to know what kind of addictions it succeeded for and for what proportion of people and for which addictions.
      - chefandy 3y ago
        Wikipedia is a good source for sources.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        A lot of countries have given up on curing addiction. Finland, for example, just gives homeless addicts housing with a social worker supervising, with the idea that their behavior will continue but giving them housing is cheaper than the public services they would consume otherwise. Success isn't necessarily quantified in how much addiction is cured. A lot of chronic drug addiction cases are simply written off (they will never be productive again).

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

That is just one perspective from the article, not a consensus, and definitely nothing that could qualify as famous, and even then the argument is along the lines of "It was successful until we stop dumping lots of money into it." That reminds of how Salt Lake City recently found out the same thing with its success in curing homelessness. The problem never ends.

310260 3y ago
What are you trying to say here though? The money is more important than people being rehabilitated? Not everything scales well. Sometimes you just have to spend to fix.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  > Not everything scales well. Sometimes you just have to spend to fix. I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? Those asks cannot coexist: if drug abuse is costing society billions or trillions of dollars in resources to fix, why do we allow it in the first place? > The money is more important than people being rehabilitated? I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. Eventually, they have to take responsibility for their own choices, especially if we have allowed that choice (if you think drug crime is victimless so shouldn't be punished is true).
  - chefandy 3y ago
    > I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? > I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. It looks like you don't understand which part you don't actually get. While Portugal's program was being funded properly, the increase in drug usage was no different from nearby countries that did not change their drug laws. Teen marijuana usage was 1/3 what it was in the US at the time. But what about the cost? Well, it seems to have saved a boatload of money on enforcement. “The most important direct effect was a reduction in the use of criminal justice resources targeted at vulnerable drug users,” says Alex Stevens, professor of criminal justice at the U.K.’s University of Kent, who co-authored the study. “Before, a large number of people were being arrested and punished for drug use alone. They saved themselves a lot of money and stopped inflicting so much harm on people through the criminal justice system. There were other trends since drugs were decriminalized in 2001, but they are less easy to attribute directly to decriminalization.” https://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/portugals-drug-experience-new-study-confirms-decriminalization-was-a-success/ https://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/portugals-drug-experi... The hippies over at Forbes seem to think that ending canabis prohibition will help the US recover economically from the pandemic like ending alcohol prohibition helped end the great depression. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-legalization-is-key-to-economic-recovery-much-like-ending-alcohol-prohibition-helped-us-out-of-the-great-depression/?sh=31ceee4a3241 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-l... But what about the collateral damage of all this rampant treating-instead-of-imprisoning-people-for-drug-use? Well, The International Journal of Drug Policy said: "Taking into consideration health and non-health related costs, we find that that the social cost of drugs decreased by 12% in the five years following the NSFAD's approval and by a rather significant 18% in the eleven-year period following its approval. Whilst the reduction of legal system costs (possibly associated with the decriminalization of drug consumption) is clearly one of the main explanatory factors, it is not the only one. In particular, the rather significant reduction of health-related costs has also played an important role." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095539591400231X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553... Surely the stalwart right-wing CATO institute will set the record straight on the fallout from such an irresponsible policy: "While drug addiction, usage, and associated pathologies continue to skyrocket in many EU states, those problems—in virtually every relevant category—have been either contained or measurably improved within Portugal since 2001. In certain key demographic segments, drug usage has decreased in absolute terms in the decriminalization framework, even as usage across the EU continues to increase, including in those states that continue to take the hardest line in criminalizing drug possession and usage." Yep, they did. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald...