
Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017) - Anon84
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it
======
hugoromano
This story always comes back every year. With some ground knowledge on this,
as I worked previously for Portugal Ministry of Health (Regional Subdivision).
All this is price, and the programme works because drugs go where the money
is, i.e. not Portugal, goes to the UK and Germany. On the other hand,
Alcoholism is a massive issue in Portugal, and there is no Government action.

~~~
ernst_klim
> because drugs go where the money is, i.e. not Portugal, goes to the UK and
> Germany.

What do you mean? Russia is one of the main drug consumers, and that's not
where money is.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15857833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15857833)

------
adamcharnock
From what I hear (as someone now living in rural Portugal), a turning point
came when most of the electorate knew someone suffering from a drug addiction.
Be it a family member, partner, or friend - there came a point when the
majority of people could not only see the problems caused by the epidemic, but
could also empathise with those with addictions.

As a result of this understanding/empathy, it was possible to pass this
legislation.

I see parallels with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. I saw somewhere
that there is a correlation between support of same-sex marriage and actually
knowing that a family member or friend is LQBTQ.

It seems to me that once people can empathise on a personal level, new
approaches become acceptable (/ enter the Overton Window).

How this relates to the opioid crisis in the USA I do not know. I’ll leave
someone else with more familiarity with the situation to pontificate on that.

~~~
daenz
For obvious reasons, I think many people would be against the suggestion that
if more people were suffering from life-destroying drug addiction, a turning
point would be reached and the problem would be solved faster. Surely there is
a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it
overtake society first.

~~~
Ensorceled
People became more sympathetic to LGBTQ issues when people started coming out
of the closet and they learned that their neighbours, cousins, nieces and
nephews were being prevented from marrying their loved ones. We didn't need to
"turn more people gay" to accomplish this.

Similarly, we need to raise the visibility and openness of dealing with drug
addiction, to come out of the closet so to speak, not increase drug addicted
people.

~~~
jacquesm
Unfortunately those in power are not nearly as badly affected by the drug
epidemic as the poorer people. Even if they develop a habit or some
complication related to it they will have access to the best care and
treatment options.

So there is very little cost to being 'tough on drugs' until the effects are
also felt at all layers of society. Portugal, a country that is a lot more
relaxed about many things than the USA had a much easier time to acknowledge
this. The 'war on drugs' will never be won, and the victims are predominantly
poor. In the meantime, American jails are overflowing with people who should
have been helped, not incarcerated.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Some of those in power benefit from keeping drugs criminalised. See for
example the way that possession of crack cocaine - used on the street -
carries much heavier sentences than powder cocaine, used by the middle
classes.

And the way large parts of the US jail system are run as a for-profit work
camp. This results in miscarriages of justice, unjustifiably long sentences
for trivial possession, and outright corruption.

This is not an unfortunate accident. It's motivated partly by greed, partly by
class violence, and partly by racism.

Most Western countries don't quite have the culture of political extremism
needed to create these conditions.

Meanwhile the murky story of CIA links to drug smuggling is a different topic
altogether.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking)

~~~
icebraining
> Most Western countries don't quite have the culture of political extremism
> needed to create these conditions.

Only 26 years before decriminalizing drugs, Portugal was a right-wing
dictatorship with concentration camps and which was waging war on Africa to
keep its slave colonies. The '74 revolution brought on two years of heavy
left-wing power, during which many feared (and others hoped) it could become a
communist state attached to the USSR.

There's no lack of culture of political extremism in Portugal.

------
atemerev
“The world” is not just US and UK. Here in Switzerland, you can register as
e.g. a heroin user, and be provided with cheap Swiss pharmaceutical quality
heroin, for the nominal price, in specialized centers for drug users (you
obviously can’t take it away, consumption is only allowed on premises — where
medical and psychological help is available, and counseling programs for
quitting drugs are advertised).

The program is immense success, there are no drug dealers on our streets
anymore (can’t compete with cheap drugs from the government), drug-related
crime has plummeted, and drug users numbers are falling down too (due to these
counseling programs).

And yes, marijuana is now fully legalized (up to some percentages of THC) and
you can buy it with grocery stores just like cigarettes. Nobody seems to be
particularly interested, there were no significant changes in consumption
culture, etc.

~~~
rolltiide
Up to 1% of THC which is useless, according to the total absense of peer
reviewed clinical trials on CBD and also no fun.

Europe would be perfect if literally anywhere got this sorted out

Sure, the general lack of life ruining prison sentences is ok and a stark
contrast from the US, Middle East and South East Asia. And further
decriminalization is ok. But where are the gummies! The edibles! Recreational
highs from a convenience store are totally absent.

Hanging out with “edgy” people in Europe feels like high school 20 years ago.
I really like the West Coast US culture of working professionals having weed
and edibles casually.

~~~
jdavis703
There's FDA approved CBD drugs like Epidiolex to treat seizures. There's also
evidence it alleviates anxiety (it certainly has helped me manage mine at
times). Yeah it's not fun like THC but that doesn't make it useless.

~~~
rolltiide
Thanks, it was hyperbole rooted in missing the latest information (Epidiolex
being approved only in June 2018)

My main point is about whats available in Europe

~~~
jdavis703
I try to be skeptical about medical claims, especially around alternative
medicine. But there's a good axiom: the absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence.

Considering that doing "gold standard" FDA approved double blind tests has
long been illegal for marijuana-based therapies I kind of had to trust myself
and others (for example a cancer survivor who claimed CBD moderatated their
headaches) that there were some therapeutic benefits. This was especially true
as some people claimed that after using traditional therapies it just didn't
work for them or the unintended side effects weren't acceptable.

~~~
rolltiide
> But there's a good axiom: the absence of evidence is not evidence of
> absence.

Very true. Thats a good lesson for this site and the expectations of internet
detectives. People think they can just say “source” and the lack of immediate
response serving as an indictment to nullify whatever statement.

The reality is that a lot of information isnt digital or resolved at all.

With regard to CBD amongst other alternative medicine, I mainly look at WHY
there werent conclusive studies. For CBD its the legality challenges and I can
accept that. For many other alternative medicines it is the incompatibility to
any scientific method and impossibility of having peer reviewed repeatable
results, masqueraded as preventative treatment.

------
crunchyfrog
I think drug addiction is really misunderstood and this leads to bad policy.
The two popular narratives that drug addiction is a moral failing or a disease
are both wrong. In some ways it is more simple than that: drug addiction is a
coping mechanism.

Most people who get addicted to drugs are using them to escape pain. This is
occasionally physical but usually mental. It is memories of traumatic
experiences or abuse, loss, stress, etc.

That is why incarceration is so counterproductive, you are just giving the
addict more pain they need to escape. Also treating drug addiction itself
without understanding and addressing the underlying reason for it will just
lead to constant relapsing.

I recommend the book Chasing the Scream for people who want a better
understanding of drug addiction.

~~~
daenz
>drug addiction is a coping mechanism.

That's reductionist. The bigger picture is: why do some people end up with
drug addiction as their coping mechanism, but others don't. Why aren't all
abuse victims drug addicts? What separates the ones who fall down that hole
and the ones who don't? Opportunity? If not opportunity, then what is that X
factor? That's why you get to the larger questions of disease, responsibility,
and moral failing.

~~~
yosito
The answer to your question is that drugs are one of many possible coping
mechanisms. One abuse victim copes with drugs, while another copes with
Stockholm syndrome, and yet another with therapy. What separates the ones who
fall down the hole from the ones who don't is a combination of opportunity,
biology (people have different reactions to the same drugs), and choice. It's
understandable that this leads people to questions of disease and moral
failing. Questions of behavior and coping mechanisms require much more nuance.

------
cjblomqvist
A lot of comments about why decriminalization of drug use is a no brainer. I'd
like to point out that it's not that simple. From what I understand from
different "experiments" like Portugal, it's a lot depending on context (eg
culture) and how it's done. For example, easier access (lower taxes) on
alcohol caused a rise in alcoholics and alcohol related deaths in Finland).
Not everyone living in Colorado is happy about the outcome there either (sorry
for no references, but please look it up if you'd like).

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done but like a startup venture, an idea is
worth very little and the environment/market + how it's realized makes all the
difference!

~~~
ganzuul
Alcohol and nicotine are extremely addictive and damaging, and you know what
happens during prohibition.

Same as cultures differ, so do the drugs. The effects of labeling sick people
(I believe the rare fully healthy people don't get addicted easily.) as
criminals are however the same everywhere.

------
JasonFruit
I don't have a strong opinion on Portugal's drug policy. But I do think
there's a flaw in the premise of this article: the success of Portugal's
policy here was dependent on Portugal's culture, history, population, and a
host of other factors that can't be replicated in another country.

It's as though I think the United States Constitution is a great thing — as in
fact I do — and say, "The radical US Constitution has worked. Why hasn't the
world copied it?" You can't lift one feature of a culture out, apply it in
isolation, and expect it to function as it did in context.

~~~
rstuart4133
> Portugal's policy here was dependent on Portugal's culture, history,
> population, and a host of other factors that can't be replicated in another
> country.

What Portugal did was pretty straight forward. A lot of people were dying from
drugs. They decided it might be because if you sought treatment you we hauled
in front of a judge and from there usually went to jail. They didn't
decriminalise it - you are still hauled before a judge. But from there the
next step was treatment for the addiction.

Not surprisingly, the evidence directed treatments works better than the non-
evidence directed treatment (jail) so a lot less people end up being severely
harmed by them. As a bonus those treatments were a lot cheaper than
incarcerating them.

The real difficulty is doing that is having a central government strong enough
to get it done. Obviously having such a government is somehow related to
"culture, history, or population", but only tangentially as I'm sure every
parliament in OECD countries could do it equally well regardless of their
history. The only difficulty they would be have is opposition from people who
are presumably like you and think it would do more harm than good.

The only facet that could be surprising is it didn't change the level of drug
usage overly. Roughly the same number of people use drugs in Portugal - the
only differences are a lot less harms are caused and their habit costs society
as a whole a lot less.

I don't know what percentage of people think that that way. It's a bit foreign
to me, as I find the idea of trying to prevent people from injecting poisons
into their blood stream by threatening to harm them in other ways to be
downright odd.

------
angel_j
Deciminalisation first. Stop treating everybody like a criminal. It is so mf
oppressive, to everybody.

"In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were
already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across
the country. The official policy of decriminalisation made it far easier for a
broad range of services (health, psychiatry, employment, housing etc) that had
been struggling to pool their resources and expertise, to work together more
effectively to serve their communities."

------
aschmid
From the headline of the article alone, it seems that part of the reason the
world hasn't copied it is that it's labeled as "radical", when it really isn't
(or shouldn't be) radical at all.

------
4ntonius8lock
I recently read some something that had the following premise:

Immigrants leave their family and friends behind. People who are more
empathetic have a harder time doing this.

Therefore, countries with net emigration will grow more empathetic. Countries
with net immigration will grow less.

While just anecdotal, this is something that I've confirmed with my
experiences.

I'll add in that countries which were founded on a genocide that happened not
too long ago, probably will have echos of this continuing for a long time.
Backwaters also tend to be less aggressively restrictive of freedom, as
greedy, aggressive people naturally navigate out of them.

~~~
AdrianB1
It does not seem right to me. My country is also a small Latin country like
Portugal and we have significant emigration - people are not more empathetic,
the hard life that makes people leave does not make the others empathetic.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
You need a baseline of comfort to be empathetic. You can't be very empathetic
when your kids are hungry.

------
tyingq
It's a reasonable question, and I can't call the current US policy as sane in
any way.

There is, though, some need to account for culture. I doubt, for example, that
replicating gun control laws from the UK to the US would result in similar gun
violence stats.

That said, at the very least, country wide decriminalized marijuana seems like
a good start for the US. It's probably less overall harm than alcohol. The
long window of employment THC tests probably holds this back.

------
andrewstuart
Portugals policy seems deeply flawed to me because it does not legalise the
sale of drugs.

This keeps a strong criminal element and does not protect drug users from
contaminated drugs.

~~~
AdrianB1
It is solving some problems, not everything. It is much more than what the
rest of the world is NOT doing.

------
1024core
> Why hasn’t the world copied it?

Because there's too much money* to be made in keeping the status quo.

* I use the terms "money" and "power" to mean the same here.

~~~
anm89
It's unfortunate that this sounds so tin foil hat because it is absolutely
true.

There is no grand conspiracy to keep drugs illegal. There is a vast, semi well
intentioned system built over a century that people adapted to over time to
profit off of and now that they are profiting they are not going to give it up
easily. Because of the governmental nature of the people who profit they are
also very well positioned to lobby for themselves. The sheer number of small
actors who benefit from this system has made it unbelievably entrenched.

~~~
50656E6973
>There is no grand conspiracy to keep drugs illegal

Many people working together to keep something illegal in order to profit is
not a "conspiracy", it's lobbying.

>semi well intentioned system

How is valuing money and power over millions of lives "semi well intenioned"?

~~~
anm89
Very few of the millions of people are conspiring together in a single group.
They conspire in small groups to achieve their individual goals which may
directly contradict the goals of others within the system on a case by case
basis.

It's not like some secret cabal where they sit around in black robes and vote
on how to maximize false arrests for profit.

Do you think out of every one of the millions of people in that system that
literally every person has absolutely no intention other than profit? Yes,
some people within the legal and even prison system have good intentions. To
think otherwise a pretty cartoonish world view.

~~~
darkpuma
I think the hangup people have is when they see apparent orchestration, groups
of people making moves that seem coordinated, they assume that conspiracy must
be the explanation.

But we know from nature that this needn't be the case. Look at a school of
fish. There is no hierarchical command structure, nor any democratic council
of the fishes, or anything like that. Their schooling behavior is emergent
behavior from each individual fish following more or less the same rules as
the other, coded in their DNA. They take cues from each other, go with the
flow, but they're not actually conspiring with the other fish. There is no
Fish Illuminati, just a bunch of fish doing normal fish things.

The failure to recognize the possibility of emergent (or convergent) behavior
in humans is I think the root cause of many conspiracy theories. This is
related to the concept of pareidolia, e.g. seeing patterns when there are
none. In this case there are genuine patterns (fish clump up in schools) but
the explanation offered up for this behavior is erroneous (fish Illuminati.)

------
Ididntdothis
This only works if there are treatment options available which won’t happen in
the US. Otherwise prisons wouldn’t be full of people with mental health
problems.

------
hamilyon2
Why is only sensible drugs policy called radical is the real question.

~~~
hamilyon2
Ok, why downvotes?

------
minikites
Drug use is seen as a moral failing that must be punished, not as an illness
that should be treated.

~~~
collyw
Illegal drug use. People use alcohol, caffeine, nicotine all the time but most
people don't even view those as "drugs".

~~~
nemonemo
The boundary between drugs and non-drugs is murky. Even refined salt, sugar,
and flour could be classified as "drugs" \-- your brain gets affected by them,
potentially permanently, and they are hardly natural -- and even less people
consider them as drugs.

~~~
nyolfen
salt, sugar, and flour aren't natural?

~~~
skosch
They aren't typically found in nature in the form in which we consume them.
They require human processing (even if it's much less processing than what
goes into making a frozen pizza).

~~~
AdrianB1
Salt is. In my grandma's village we have both natural salt rocks and also salt
springs people use for cooking, conserving white cheese or preparing pickles.
And that village is not an exception in my country, it is the rule in all
mountain areas.

------
damnyou
A lot of this depends on how evenly people suffering are distributed through
society.

One reason queer rights caught on so quickly is that LGBTQ people are evenly
distributed across racial, ethnic and class boundaries. A rich white kid is
exactly as likely to be trans, say, as a poor Brown or Black kid. People
suffering from drug addictions in the US are more concentrated among certain
communities.

~~~
acpetrov
Do you have a source on racial/class distribution for lgbt? Would be
interested to see it

~~~
jacquesm
Are you trolling? It would seem obvious that such things are distributed
exactly the same no matter what ones social status or ethnic background is. It
would be very surprising if it wasn't.

~~~
dondawest
It’s not obvious AT ALL. If you’re aware of the “cluster effect” of those with
rapid-onset gender dysphoria, you’re aware that being trans is highly
influenced by ones social conditions.

You’re making an argument that nature is everything when it comes to one’s
LGBT status and nurture means nothing, but there’s mountains of evidence to
show this is not the case.

If you want to tell me that it’s JUST A COINKYDINK that so many female movie
stars have male children that JUST SO HAPPEN to be gender dysphoric, your
“nature means everything and nurture means nothing” philosophy on LGBT status
seems incredibly far-fetched.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how bad the
comment you're replying to is. That only makes this place worse.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
dondawest
I don’t understand this at all. Can “kindness” not be “snarky”?

Your labeling my substantive comments “unsubstantive” is really really weird
to me.

------
zcid
Same-sex marriage never achieved enough support to be legalized [0][1]. It was
voted against throughout the country including liberal states such as
California. Same-sex marriage was legislated by a small number of judges.

I'm not making an argument for or against so please don't debate me on the
merits of this issue. I am merely pointing out that the people did not decide
this issue. A very small number of elites did.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-
sex_marriage_legislation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-
sex_marriage_legislation_in_the_United_States#Efforts_to_ban_same-
sex_unions_by_constitutional_amendment) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banning_same-
sex_unions_by_type)

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434037](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20434037).

~~~
zcid
Can I ask why this comment was detached?

I feel it was relevant to the point the OP was making concerning legislation
vs popularity among the citizenry.

~~~
dang
It turned into a thread about same-sex marriage, which has nothing to do with
the article. Whimsical tangents can be ok, but well-worn-political-debate
tangents are off topic on HN.

Keep in mind that when we moderate something like that, it's never just about
the root comment (i.e. the one you posted). It's always about the subthread as
a whole.

------
ahelwer
But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits

'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics

'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison

You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment

Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits

That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits

Killer Mike, "Reagan"

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU](https://youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU)

~~~
microcolonel
> _' Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics_

it isn't

> _' Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison; you think I am
> bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment_

This is true, they didn't listen when _Kanye_ said it awkwardly, but it's been
true the whole time.

> _That 's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits_

Maaaaybe sometimes, but if you come at it from that perspective you aren't
going to convince enough people to change their minds.

The way it's been sold to the public is not from the perspective of
_benefitting prisons_ ; so you need to address the argument that the public is
given: that illicit drugs are so dangerous that the enforcement is worth it.

There are lots of countries without "reaganomics" or any private prisons,
which are extremely strict and punitive when it comes to illicit drugs.

It looks like the law is going in the right direction though, the recent
sentencing reform has been great, decriminalization (or at least,
sentencing/institutions that do more good than harm) should be the next step,
but it's not at the top of _anyone 's_ platform as far as I can tell.

Added: another story on Hacker News today, related to prison labour in a
country which isn't the U.S. (I see absolutely nobody crying foul):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20427122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20427122)

~~~
4ntonius8lock
> so you need to address the argument that the public is given: that illicit
> drugs are so dangerous that the enforcement is worth it

Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have
historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things
that are enforced 'on other people'.

Middle class young hippies were shocked when the system showed its teeth and
banned a substance so that the movement could be targeted by the repression
systems put in place... while that was the norm done toward people in bad
neighborhoods.

Some people think the the answer is to get people to be more self aware of
their position, especially hypocritical positions based on emotion that hurt
others, and hopefully be more empathetic.

~~~
microcolonel
> _Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have
> historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things
> that are enforced 'on other people'._

The vast majority of people do not have trouble generally abiding by the
provisions of the Controlled Substances Act; and while that doesn't mean it's
_just_ , but it does mean it's not crazy for ordinary people to think that
others could abide by it as well.

Very few people are even _familiar_ with the concept of the prison industrial
complex, let alone _explicitly motivated to vote by it_.

> _Middle class young hippies were shocked when the system showed its teeth
> and banned a substance so that the movement could be targeted by the
> repression systems put in place... while that was the norm done toward
> people in bad neighborhoods._

Just as gun control is no longer typically motivated by racism, the war on
drugs is not today typically motivated (to the ordinary person) by a prejudice
against hippies or hispanics.

If you argue against a point nobody is defending, you'll change nothing.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
The people who designed the war on drugs, did so with a target. It is to this
day blatantly targeting certain communities, for example, sentencing
guidelines between crack and cocaine.

Your logic is faulty: If you follow your line of thinking making the Kippah
illegal would be fine since the 'vast majority of us' wouldn't have any
trouble abiding by the new law. Oh, you did put in a condition: as long as
enforcement is 'perceived by the ordinary person' to be non-prejudice. I'm not
sure why you put that condition into the logic, or how that changes the
reality of the injustice... but ok.

~~~
microcolonel
As I said, I'm not saying the law is just, I'm saying that most people don't
support because they intend to perpetrate your perceived injustice.

The vast majority of people are not moustache-twirling villains who think that
drug laws should be enforced in the way they are, for the particular purpose
of punishing the downtrodden or profiting prisons at any cost; so when your
argument revolves around that, the people who know they don't support it for
that reason are not going to be convinced.

You're arguing against the cynical, bigoted schemers who influenced the law,
not the people who've accepted it for the public messaging (which has been,
beyond a certain point, not recognizable as racist); and those ordinary people
are the voters who decide elections.

This is not the world of John Lennon's _Imagine_ ; where bad things only
happen because people choose to be evil, and everything can be solved by
choosing not to be evil.

Ordinary people do the wrong thing because they've been convinced by faulty or
incomplete arguments, or they've ignored the arguments altogether. Ordinary
people do the wrong thing because they are wrong.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
I'm really not sure what your point it is. You seem to be saying 'don't say
the drug war is discriminatory', even though it is. You then present logic
that seems very unsound (as highlighted by the kippah example)

But to answer you:

> ordinary people are the voters who decide elections

Which is why it is so important that the war on drugs is painted for what it
is.

Voters today might not grasp it. But those voters will die off. New
generations will come in.

> Ordinary people do the wrong thing because they are wrong

Absolutely! That is why it's important to highlight it is wrong. Even if THEY
don't see it. Their children likely will. Some of them will.

The truth has strength.

It's like flat earthers. You don't highlight their inconsistencies to teach
them. You highlight it because it is the truth. And the truth shines. People
pick up on it... eventually. Slowly. Gradually. It's been happening for
thousands of years.

~~~
microcolonel
I can't make you read what I had to say, but I think you are being very
inflexible and I hope you'll go back and try.

If one isn't willing to read any argument from start to finish before
comparing people to "flat earthers" and thinking that only "old people who are
about to die" disagree with him, one will fail to convince anyone, young or
old.

Many ordinary people are OK with the war on drugs because they believe that
the enforcement is less dangerous than access to drugs. If you tell them it's
racist or profit-driven, you get to be all smug to yourself; but they weren't
in on it for racism or profit to begin with.

To a new Chinese immigrant who's just used to narcotics being extremely
forbidden, because they consider them extremely dangerous (for good historical
reason); your "enforcement of drug laws is racist and profit-driven" argument
is immaterial, because even if they aren't racist or profiting from private
prisons, they still think that narcotics prohibition is reasonable.

~~~
4ntonius8lock
I'm happy you are arguing for drug law reform in the way you do.

I was just explaining a different way of arguing in favor of it. My way and
the way of many people.

You do you. My post was very specific: 'some people see it this way'

P.S. I never said 'old people who are about to die'. I said a generation will
die off (it could be mine), and new ones will come in. I was implying a long
term view of things (as in, look at the difference in attitudes over 50 or
even 100 years)

And I never compared you to a flat earth-er. I compared people who support the
current drug legislation to flat earthers. Because both of them have mountains
of evidence that point to the fact that they should change their perspective,
yet don't do so in the face of such evidence.

How you argue in favor of reform is on you. How we do reform is open to
debate. That we need it is a fact like the world is round. That I don't agree
with arguing in the way you do does not mean I don't understand your
perspective (appealing to people's self interest vs sense of right)

I respect it. My only intention was providing you with a different
perspective.

------
rambo5
The CIA aren't going to give up their lucrative drug business that easily

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

~~~
rambo5
Why? My comment is based on fact.

------
imtringued
Because the world doesn't want it. The drug addict problem exists by design.

------
coretx
Because half of the security industrial complex and the USA would go bankrupt.

~~~
dmix
It’s illegal in Canada (everything besides weed) and most of the western and
non western world too.

We don’t have private prisons or even a separate agency like the DEA whose job
is directly tied to drugs. It’s very much still a cultural reality people
haven’t accepted. Although it doesn’t help with the gov agencies constantly
fear mongering or straight up lying.

~~~
coretx
Indigenous Canadians use ( not abuse ) drugs since forever. Traditionally,
religion is the gateway to murderous drug policy almost everywhere; uphold by
the highly profitable and rent seeking security industrial complex. It's a
self reinforcing circle. One that's not likely to end anytime soon. Look at
the downvotes i received on my previous post - one that is not only evident
but can easily be proven to be true.

~~~
dmix
Sure but a lot of people still believe drugs should be illegal and it’s still
a big cultural taboo in many parts of the world. Only recently in the west has
that started to shift over 50% for pot. Other ones are much farther behind.

That has a big effect on the system as a whole. I still think the agencies and
policy directly influences people’s opinion. They constantly hear about drug
dealers getting arrested so they associate it immediately as bad people
engaged in bad things.

So it does have a cyclical effect but not just for financial or rent-seeking
reasons. Which exists but I suspect has a smaller role than you think.

------
zarathustraa
In some US cities, San Francisco for example, possession and consumption of
drugs is also basically decriminalized, just like in Portugal.

You can openly shot it up your veins in front of cops and nothing will happen
to you.

I look forward to more cities adopting this policy of tacit decriminalization.

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jimdalrympleii/public-d...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jimdalrympleii/public-
drug-use-san-francisco)

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/San-F...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/San-
Francisco-where-street-addicts-outnumber-13571702.php)

~~~
Couto
That's not the same than being decriminalized.

In Portugal, if you do that the police will ask you for your ID if it's a
light drug like cannabis, or take you to the police center if it's an heavier
drug. If you keep being caught by the police a judge can order you to take
psychiatric help.

Being decriminalized means that you won't be arrested when you ask for help,
and you have access to clean syringes to avoid diseases and infections.

Help being provided, it's not the same than being legal.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
While what you're saying is true, I think that's why the world is afraid to
adopt Portugal's policy. If getting halfway there is worse than doing nothing
at all, it's a very dangerous thing to try.

~~~
Couto
Just my opinion:

In my experience, when people say drugs they think of cannabis, but cannabis
was never the major problem in Portugal.

Our problem was heroin. I think no country will legalize heroin, at least not
in the short/medium term.

This is clearly working, one of the major entrypoints of heavy drugs in Europe
(Casal Ventoso in Lisbon) is almost clean of problems, there are still heavy
drug users of course, but most of the associated violence disappeared.

Even portuguese people's mindset shifted from "junkies" to "people that need
help".

So even if you consider a "halfway there" because you're thinking about
legalization, this is still working and it's a good middle term to help
society shift their mentality.

Disclaimer: I'm talking from my experience as a Portuguese person, not hard
numbers. I remember walking in my hometown parks (which is a very small city)
and see syringes and drug users everywhere when I was a kid. This doesn't
happen anymore.

~~~
collyw
Heroin does seem to be a problematic drug.

I read that only 10% of users get addicted. But are there places where heroin
is used where it doesn't become a problem?

(I am from the country where the film Trainspotting is set).

~~~
pizza
> In 1971, as the Vietnam War was heading into its sixteenth year, congressmen
> Robert Steele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois made a
> discovery that stunned the American public. While visiting the troops, they
> had learned that over 15 percent of U.S. soldiers stationed there were
> heroin addicts. Follow up research revealed that 35 percent of service
> members in Vietnam had tried heroin and as many as 20 percent were
> addicted—the problem was even worse than they had initially thought. [...]

> Lee Robins was one of the researchers in charge. In a finding that
> completely upended the accepted beliefs about addiction, Robins found that
> when soldiers who had been heroin users returned home, only 5 percent of
> them became re-addicted within a year, and just 12 percent relapsed within
> three years. In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used
> heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight.

From [https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits](https://jamesclear.com/heroin-
habits)

~~~
collyw
True, I had heard that before, but its not really what I was asking. Your
example still has 10% addicts (the same number that I mentioned). Did these
people become problematic to their wider community? The 10% who become
addicted have caused plenty of problems in my city.

------
lostmymind66
Because Portugal doesn't have countries like Mexico bordering it that will use
the legal drug trade to further fund cartel violence and control over the
country. Corruption is already so rampant, they need to fix their problems
before we should ever think about legalizing all drugs.

We already have an Opioid crises in the US..and this is with legal drugs.
Lawmakers are already starting to blame the legal drug dealers and creators
for getting people addicted.

If drugs are legalized, a person shouldn't be able to sue the dealer or
creator. In the US, it seems like the attitude is "my body, my choice". Until
that choice has negative consequences and then the person with the biggest
wallet is sued for damages.

I don't really see happening in Portugal.

~~~
sbov
Legalizing drugs is the best thing the US could do with respect to the
cartels. Not only would it reduce profits, it would give producers an arbiter
to go to when there are disputes rather than forcing them to rely on their own
version of justice.

~~~
masonic
California's legalization has shown this to be untrue. Cartel grows in public
lands have exploded as the legal market provides general cover for grow and
transport activities. There is an estimated 16 times as much cannabis grown in
CA than traverses the legal markets... and that excludes imports.

