
Portugal decriminalized drugs a decade ago – what have we learned? (2011) - Hooke
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/17/getting-a-fix
======
DubiousPusher
> Yet there is much to debate about the Portuguese approach to drug addiction.
> Does it help people to quit, or does it transform them into more docile drug
> addicts, wards of an indulgent state, with little genuine incentive to alter
> their behavior?

Who the f __* cares. It makes their lives better where nothing else has worked
so far.

This is like saying, I beat my disobedient kid because I'd rather have a
bruised disobedient kid than a non-bruised disobedient kid.

Whether or not someone living addicted to drugs is existing in a state of
moral decline is a personal judgement call and it's no business of the
state's, so long as that addiction isn't affecting the lives of others in a
significantly negative way.

Only a wishy-washy equivocating, journalist can write, "everything about the
new system appears to be working and it's making the lives of all better but
is it really a good thing."

~~~
irishloop
Yeah, this is a common argument against drug legalization: "But are we really
helping the addicts?"

The sooner people accept that addiction, like violence, will probably just
never disappear completely, the better off they'll be. We're looking at a
policy of harm reduction, not the fantasy that we can cure addiction. Some
people will always be on the outliers. The question is, do we criminalize
their behavior and add an entire criminal subculture or do we accept it in
order to reduce the overall harm to society and the addict?

~~~
Kalium
The question isn't "Are we really helping the addicts?". The question is "Are
we helping the addicts as best we can for a reasonable investment of
resources?".

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iamcurious
"...about half of American adults believe that marijuana use should be
legalized...". I find that strange. In Uruguay, 64% was _against_
legalization.[1] Not that they cared strongly. It was legalized anyway and now
most people don't care.

[1] In Spanish, sorry:
[http://historico.elpais.com.uy/121218/pnacio-682703/nacional...](http://historico.elpais.com.uy/121218/pnacio-682703/nacional/cifra-
el-64-esta-en-contra-de-legalizar-la-marihuana/)

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mellavora
Us, not very much, because we still use the criminal justice system to treat
medical problems. But we are getting a little smarter, repealing some of the
marijuana badness.

~~~
DubiousPusher
Totally, half the trouble with the recent conflicts between the police and the
policed here stem from the fact that law enforcement has had all the social
problems that we've abdicated responsibility for dumped at their door.

~~~
mellavora
its deeper than that. If you only knew the levels of opiate abuse in LEOs...
WELL above the levels in the general population.

~~~
rjurney
LEOs?

~~~
jkaunisv1
Likely Law Enforcement Officers but their statement applies if it's Low Earth
Orbit. Anything would be well above the general population if done in orbit!

------
kylestlb
"Unfortunately, nothing about substance abuse is simple."

I think that's the problem with criminalizing personal drug use; treating it
as simply a crime.

~~~
mellavora
The problem is that turning actions which cause no harm (injury, loss, or
damage to another) or threat of harm into crimes is perversion of law. The
problem is using criminal justice system to attack medical issues is a
perversion of law.

A perverse law has perverse effects. We've created massive organized crime
gangs by criminalizing things which should be legal.

I like to tease the Swedes. They thought that alcohol was such a social ill
that only a state-run monopoly should be allowed to sell it (so no
advertising). The corollary is that they thought other drugs were so bad that
only criminal gangs should be allowed to sell them.

~~~
rayiner
> The problem is that turning actions which cause no harm (injury, loss, or
> damage to another) or threat of harm into crimes is perversion of law

Drug use does harm. It harms users and it harms their families. The harms do
not cease to be harms just because they're self-inflicted. Nor do they cease
to be harms just because some countries have responded with legal regimes that
are arguably worse than the problem.

~~~
DanBC
The harms are much worse because of criminalisation.

Refusal to provide clean needles, injection clinics, and safe needle disposal
bins causes harm to low wage cleaners who risk needle stick injuries when
addicts use toilet stalls to inject drugs.

About one third to one half of acquisitive crime is to fund drug use. That
could be drastically reduced by treating drug addiction as the public health
problem that it is, rather than as a criminal justice problem.

[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-
of...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-of-
acquisitive-crime-caused-by-class-a-drug-users-in-the-uk)

Illegal drugs are sold by criminal gangs. These gangs rely on the illegality
of drugs to make a profit. Legalising drugs would drastically reduce the
influence of these gangs.

Keeping drugs illegal doesn't seem to be working.

~~~
rayiner
Your argument that we should treat drug addiction as a "public health problem"
is inconsistent with mellavora's assertion that drug use "cause[s] no harm
(injury, loss, or damage to another) or threat of harm."

~~~
deelowe
The argument typically isn't that we should treat drug _use_ as a health
problem. That would have quite some odd effects on the medical field, if that
were true.

Drug addiction should be treated as a health issue. I'd actually go as far as
saying "uncontrolled" should be added to that statement. I'm pretty pretty
damn addicted to coffee, but don't think I need to go see counseling about it.
Treating everything like it's black and white is what got us into this mess.

------
Lancey
A lot of the interviewees in this article don't understand the difference
between decriminalization and legalization.

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tzs
Just to be clear for those who do not read the article, "decriminalized" does
not mean "legal". It means that while personal drug use, and possession for
personal use, are still illegal, they are not treated as criminal matters. You
go before a commission which can send you to treatment, or levy a small fine,
or do nothing.

Dealers still get treated as criminals and go to prison.

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icebraining
As a note, the PM that passed this legislation is now the UN's High
Commissioner for Refugees.

~~~
ucsdrake
I'm genuinely curious, what relevance or bearing does this have to the linked
article? Is it supposed to imply something about the PM? Not hating, just
honestly unsure.

~~~
protomyth
It didn't / did (not sure myself) affect the PM's career?

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stuaxo
I don't know, after a few glasses of wine, I read this - I got 90% through it
and lots of interesting details, but just too long and rambling :/

~~~
lotsofcows
Ah, but that's because it's not particularly pertinent to you; your (our :-)
unhealthy addiction is entirely legal...

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tptacek
Portugal also apparently saw statistically significant increases in both
homicide and drug mortality, relative to rates across Europe.

"Decriminalization" generally implies deregulation of the demand side of
drugs, but not the supply side (deregulation of both is generally
"legalization"). That's problematic; it takes a burden off the criminal
justice system, but many of the externalities of drug prohibition are closely
tied to the supply side.

~~~
tjradcliffe
The data gathered here:
[http://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html](http://www.unodc.org/gsh/en/data.html)
don't particularly support this claim, at least with regard to homicide (I'm
still looking for data on drug mortality).

Drug decriminalization policy was introduced in Portugal in 2000 and was
legally in effect as of July 2001. It is reasonable to assume that police
enforcement efforts of drug possession laws were scaled down over the first
six months of 2001.

Two years later, the murder rate jumped from 1.1 per 100K population (110-120
murders per year) to 1.4 (140-150 murders per year), wobbled around a bit,
peaking in 2007 at 1.8 (185 murders per year) after which it dropped back to
the 1.1 - 1.2 range (110-130 murders per year) which is difficult to
distinguish from the 2000-2002 value.

In the rest of Europe murders mostly declined over the same period, dropping
by about a factor of two in Spain (1.4 to 0.8 murders per year) and either
dropping slightly or remaining steady, except for Greece, which also saw a bit
of bump mid-decade.

So on the face of it, the murder rate in Portugal did jump two years after the
drug policy came into effect, and Greece-which saw no such change in policy--
saw a similar bump that was unlikely to be caused by Portuguese drug policy.

Furthermore, without change in drug policy, the rate in Portugal has dropped
back to what it was before, and is comfortably in the middle of the European
range, from lows of 0.8 for places like Germany and Spain to highs of 1.9 in
Belgium, with France and the UK both in the 1.1-1.2 range where Portugal
currently sits.

So there is no strong case to be made on the raw statistics alone that changes
in the murder rate in Portugal have been strongly influenced by changes in
drug policy. It is clear that the murder rate in Portugal increased when most
of the rest of Europe was decreasing, but so was the murder rate in Greece.
Given the two countries have economic similarities (small nations on the
European periphery) that suggests--but does nothing like prove--that economic
factors might play a role in the murder rate.

~~~
stuaxo
Interesting - I wonder where the jump in murders could come from?

~~~
luso_brazilian
Based on the timeline I would suppose it is related with the massive financial
crisis that Portugal plunged in that time period, culminating in the 2011
bailout.

At least as far as it can be observed from my first hand perspective most
homicides in Portugal are passional in nature: mostly conjugal but many
derived from disputes between neighbors or rival groups. It is very rare to
see drug motivated murders.

One thing that is very clear in these past 10 years in here is that
decriminalization allied with social and medical intervention by the
government (needle exchange programs, methadone clinics) had two very visible
effects in the drug use dynamic in this country, one direct and one indirect.

The direct one was to reduce the risk of death and disease among the drug user
population. HIV among this group was reduced in 30% [1] for instance.

The second effect was indirect. The drug of choice and most problematic
(considered an epidemics in the end of the 20th century) was heroin. But as
the government started to treat people the drug lost its mistic of a
rebellious and dangerous pleasure and became a "hobo drug" for a few poor
toxicodependents that depend on the government for their next fix. And that
change of perception is (IMO) responsible for the rapid decline of heroin use
that followed this policy.

All things considered I believe most portuguese see the effects of the
decriminalization as a positive thing and, at worst, it had no negative effect
in the health of the overall society.

[1]
[http://www.dn.pt/inicio/portugal/interior.aspx?content_id=43...](http://www.dn.pt/inicio/portugal/interior.aspx?content_id=4306726)
(in Portuguese)

