Picture: AP Photo/ Paulo Duarte
Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs Eleven Years Ago And The Results Are Staggering
On July 1st, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong.
Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labelling drug users as criminals to labelling them as people affected by a disease. This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow.
First, some clarification.
Portugal’s move to decriminalize does not mean people can carry around, use, and sell drugs free from police interference. That would be legalization. Rather, all drugs are “decriminalized,” meaning drug possession, distribution, and use is still illegal. While distribution and trafficking is still a criminal offence, possession and use is moved out of criminal courts and into a special court where each offender’s unique situation is judged by legal experts, psychologists, and social workers. Treatment and further action is decided in these courts, where addicts and drug use is treated as a public health service rather than referring it to the justice system (like the U.S.), reports Fox News.
The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has beenhalved in the following 10 years. Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report.
One more outcome: a lot less sick people. Drug related diseases including STDs and overdoses have been reduced even more than usage rates, which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts.
While this policy is by no means news, the statistics and figures, which take years to develop and subsequently depict the effects of the change, seem to be worth noting. In a country like America, which may take the philosophy of criminalization a bit far (more than half of America’s federal inmates are in prison on drug convictions), other alternatives must, and to a small degree, are being discussed.
For policymakers or people simply interested in this topic, cases like Portugal are a great place to start.
See also: Here’s How America’s Love Of Methamphetamine Helped Create The Hellish Mexican Drug War >
Comments
Who's preaching, this info and what malcolm posted below needs to be known. For instance drugs have been a major income for the military and the DC for many decades , all the way back to the vietnam drug war. And yet here we are still supporting them and there bad drugs and there Wars, especially the USA. All of this has to Stop, and also regarding our Freedom from the slavery that we now live in, we need to legalize or at least decimalize all Drugs, the good ones and the bad ones. People have to stand up for there rights, if they wont them. No one is going to hand Freedom to us we have to stand up for it and then take it, as our God given right! Adonai
Aren't you preaching to the choir here?
I mean, there can't be a single soul on this site that actually believes that criminalization of things are actually a functioning way of getting rid of existing phenomena in a society? ;)
Good points. Also note that in addition to creating a pool of cheap labor, illegal drugs are grown and sold by members of the U.S. government itself. Hence, they get the "best of both worlds:" a pool of cheap labor for their campaign contributing corporate sponsors and under-the-table money from these same inmates (before they get arrested).
Here's U.S. Marines guarding a poppy field in Afghanistan. If you were caught growing this when the Taliban was there, you had you're head cut off. And the Taliban is no longer there.
Actually the Nederlands has been the real leaders on how to deal with drugs and that is to leave them the way they were for thousands of yrs. The USA is of course the worst because of the DC-NWO behind the scenes using drugs to create havoc by criminalizing it and in the process destroying the society, creating criminals out of ordinary citizens. It has always been my belief that the govt. has no right to tell you what you can do with our body or what you put into it. As long as drugs are illegal there will be gangs and high crime and bad drugs mixed in with the good ones, like pot. Anything that mother nature gives us in its natural form is good and anyone can grow or harvest them, so there's no need for bad drugs, gangs and big business made by those on top. Legalize it and there control over us falls apart quickly, its the only answer,this is important to do now,huh. Adonai
Portugal obviously doesn't have a large prison population that corporate sponsors of politicians can utilize at $0.25 an hour, like the U.S. has.