DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... 6 incredible things that happened when Portugal decriminalized all drugs

oh word...

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-when-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-2016-3

In July 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.

The possession of small quantities of those drugs was shifted to a public-health — rather than criminal — issue.

And rather than getting arrested for a small amount, you get sent to a "dissuasion commission," where a doctor, lawyer, and social worker prescribe treatment or give you a fine.

Mic's Zeeshan Aleem reports that people walk away without a penalty most of the time.

Here's what the data says about Portugal's decriminalization:

Drug-related HIV infections have plummeted by over 90% since 2001, according to the drug-policy think tank Transform.
Drug-related deaths in Portugal are the second-lowest in the European Union. Just three in a million people die of overdoses there, compared with the EU average of 17.3 per million.
The number of adults who have done drugs in the past year has decreased steadily since 2001.
Compared to rest of the EU, young people in Portugal now use the least amount of "legal high" drugs like synthetic marijuana, which are especially dangerous.
The percentage of drug-related offenders in Portuguese prisons fell from 44% in 1999 to 21% in 2012.
The number of people in drug-treatment increased 60% from 1998 to 2011 from 23,600 to 38,000.
Portugal's decriminalization came about because the country was in crisis.

In 1974, Portugal's dictatorship fell after a coup that became known as the Carnation Revolution. The country soon became flooded with drugs. By 1999, a full 1% of the population was actively addicted to heroin, and the country had the highest rate of drug-related AIDS deaths in the EU.

Shifting drug use from a criminal to a public-health problem was a bid to reverse that trend.

"We figured perhaps this way we would be better able get things under control," drug policy architect João Goulão told Der Spiegel in 2013. "Criminalization certainly wasn't working all that well."

Goulão has been careful to say that you can't evaluate decriminalization in isolation — it was all part of Portugal's robust rollout of an expanded welfare state.

Portugal isn't alone in shifting the war on drugs to something less combative. The Netherlands has a "tolerance policy" of soft drugs like marijuana, which can be sold in regulated cafes. Uruguay became the first country to fully legalize marijuana in 2013, and marijuana is slated to go on sale in regular pharmacies in the second half of 2016. Four US states have legalized recreational marijuana, with Oregon raking in tax money from doing so.

Here's the article that kicked all of this talk off this week:

http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/


Here's an NPR piece accompanying the original article (Which is much better than BI -- no offense, Swish).

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/27/472023148/...ing-the-problem

not really making it legal when you still get sent to treatment for possession, but this is much better than incarceration.

exactly.

i don't see why this can't be implemented by state.

I have no problem with looking into different solutions to the drug problem, treatment, diversion programs, and such ...... but I cannot see decriminalizing hard drugs.

Once you remove the appealing forbidden fruit aspect, people don't care as much.

You think people need to do go to jail for doing drugs? Ruin their lives and make them unemployable? I feel sorry for you...

We need to treat the cause of the problem, not the symptoms. Trying to attack the problem by going after the suppliers is not working and never will as long as there's a market for it. Eliminate, or reduce, the market and those supplying will go away.

Its too contrarian for most people to think about though, so we'll just wasting money on the "War" on drugs.

pretty much. Shiny red button means push.

For pot which I don't consider physically addicting I'm all in favor but for heroin and crack and meth where people just lose their minds to get their next fix, what about them? Aren't they menaces to society?

i think people selling hard drugs should still go to jail.

but people who are using shouldn't, unless there are committing a crime while under the influence, like theft or something.

putting people in jail for using is not only NOT solving the problem, one could make the argument it's making it worse.

Once they are hooked though, you have to get them off and that is going to be a painful process that society shouldn't have to bear the burden of paying for. No one asked them to get theirselves hooked. We can't just protect dummy from themselves, they have to accept responsibility for their own actions.

Opium: The Downfall of Imperial China

http://www.historywiz.com/downfall.htm

Since we are forced to pay for insurance, it should also include drug rehab.

Do you really think a drugie is going to be paying for insurance?

According to Obama he should be. There should be state facilities for this. Not the old horrifying kind. Modern facilities.

Gotta keep it real with my theme.

Although a lot of "druggies" are normal people with jobs and insurance.

yea, i dunno why people still think the majority of druggies are always poor or something.

a lot of the drug addicts have tons of bread.

I suspect that it would also drop the cost through the floor, causing the dealers to go ahead and get real jobs instead as it wouldn't pay nearly as much to continue in that line of work.

[quote]a lot of the drug addicts have tons of bread./quote]

I'd still be reluctant to ask one of them for a sandwich!

Just an assumption but I'd think paying for treatment would be less expensive than incarceration. The Gov't already pays to keep users in jail. Just switch that to paying for treatment instead. ??

How has that worked in Colorado? Has legalizing caused a drop in use? (he asks, already knowing the answer)

We all, sans New Hampshire, have uninsured motorists laws where you're required to have at least liability insurance. Even with that 13% of the motorists have none. Regardless of personal wealth.

Link

Just because you're required to buy a thing doesn't mean you will buy a thing. So what do you do with these people? What do you do if the person hopped up is out driving? Certainly you don't condone allowing people on meth or crack to be driving in traffic where there are children in cars, right?

Now all that aside, why should insurance pay for that? You're (not you specifically) the moron that did this to yourself, why should insurance pay for your rehab? That's like you purposely setting your house on fire and expecting home owners insurance to build you a new house.

Society should not have to pay for you to freely be a moron. You have to be a responsible person. If you can pay your way through it, great, if not, some kind of community service once you're deemed no longer addicted, to pay back to society what they they did for you. No criminal record, just a pathway to getting cured and taking care of the society that took care of you.

But what of multiple offenders? At what point does society "cut" Johnny Manziel because he's just too self involved to learn from his mistakes.

Insurance already pays for

Assessment, Detoxification, Outpatient treatment, and Inpatient (residential) treatment for drugs, and booze.

Shows what I know about drugs and rehab.

I know nothing about rehab. Hell I have never been a quitter in my life

Maybe it is something we could look into .. Folks who use /need drug's are weak individuals and therefor need help .. Why assist them ? Drugs/Booze what ever .. I was a border -line alcoholic for many a year .. I think it was just hard to quit drinking as it was smoking ..

Why assist them?

While I understand what you're saying and at first glance it makes sense, we must also look at the reality of the situation.

As of now we pay for them to go into the prison system. So we're going to pay for the use of illegal and very harmful drug abuse either way. The cost to house an inmate is nothing to sneeze at.

So the choice we have is to either pay for rehab knowing some of them will get well and be productive, tax paying citizens, or lock them up with a felony that in the end will make it much harder for them to ever pay into the system.

Either way, the taxpayer pays the bill. One way holds some hope of getting a return on the investment while the other way only helps to insure that you won't.

There are also some places where removing traffic signals have lowered accident rates. I dont know that it is a good idea though. That being said, I have 0 issue with 100% legalizing pot. Heroin, cocaine, or other stuff...not so much.

We live in a society that by and large fully understands the difference between marijuana, than crack, meth and heroin.

It's certainly an apples and oranges comparison.

Op's ; Should be why Not assist them ! Typo ..

Decriminalization is not making it legal. There is no way our society can arrest our way out of this crisis.

I didn't say a thing about prison, I said community service with no criminal record.

It hasn't been legal for very long, plus I would not be surprised if some people aren't flocking there for just that reason so it's hard to tell. There is going to be a curve where if you take something that was formerly taboo and make it legal, there is going to be an immediate rise (I don't know what the duration is of how long that would last) before it begins to fall.

It's like if you have a 17 year old son who likes to go out drinking with his friends... and you decide you are going to allow him to drink the beer from the fridge, removing the taboo... I would imagine that at first, he's going to drink quite a bit before it becomes not very exciting any more...

Well, no it's not.

The original article spoke of decriminalizing all drugs, and the post I replied to stated that once the lure of forbidden fruit is removed, usage drops.

While that is a possibility, I doubt that people are driving to another state to buy pot, when it is pretty freely available almost everywhere in the country.

It's not like when Coor's was available only in the Western US, and someone bringing back some from vacation was really something. Pot is nothing special for most who use it. I doubt that there is any real need to drive to get "special" pot in Colorado.

Amersterdam was only famous for their "coffee houses" and very many people traveled there for the experience of legal pot. Colorado is no different.

Unless you don't have the pot but just cash on you, then the cops will take your cash because their cop like crystal ball tells them you were indeed going to buy pot with it and they are saving you from your nasty ways by eliminating that money from your possession.