Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?

[CptSternn]

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...893946,00.html

Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)

Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.

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The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.

The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.

"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.

But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.

At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.

"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.

Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.

The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."

[Apathy's_Child]

Awesome article, dude.

[Delkaetre]

That one's been around for a while. There's another one up in the Guardian in relation to the five year report that was published- showing that five years on from decriminalisation of narcotic use in a developed, Western country, drug use, crime and HIV have all gone down dramatically.

[CptSternn]

If by 'a while' you mean last week, then yes.

By Maia Szalavitz Sunday, Apr. 26, 2009

Post the link to the Guardian article, I would love to have a read of it sure.

[Delkaetre]

No, I mean another one that came out rather more than a week ago. But The guardian's search function is really not good unless you know an exact name or exact date, which pisses me right off when I want to find things.

Have this fresher but totally unrelated piece about police violence instead. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...t-provacateurs

[KontanKarite]

This is a very interesting article.

[HumanePain]

The most probable significant effect of decriminalization in the United States would be to remove the drug lord's source of money, and subsequently reduction in drug trafficking related violence. It would also reduce the number of the incarcerated and then allow the police to focus on more violent and dangerous criminals.

In my opinion, the U.S. should:

a) remove all laws regarding personal possession of marijuana, up to say, an ounce or two.

b) remove all laws regarding growing cannabis for personal use (if you're growing an acre, hey, you're busted). May start with say, 10 plants, or by square feet, say 50?

c) tax the selling of cannibis. No brainer.

[menus era sota]

i hate how anal America is about everything - it's so obvious just to look at what other countries are doing and see that it works.

Originally Posted by HumanePain

In my opinion, the U.S. should:

a) remove all laws regarding personal possession of marijuana, up to say, an ounce or two.

b) remove all laws regarding growing cannabis for personal use (if you're growing an acre, hey, you're busted). May start with say, 10 plants, or by square feet, say 50?

c) tax the selling of cannibis. No brainer.

sounds pretty good but, marijuana isn't really the problem. i agree with the taxing - it's too cheap already. so, (in order to tax it) are you suggesting the government sells it to you? haha, that'll be the day.

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Delkaetre

No, I mean another one that came out rather more than a week ago. But The guardian's search function is really not good unless you know an exact name or exact date, which pisses me right off when I want to find things.

Have this fresher but totally unrelated piece about police violence instead. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...t-provacateurs

That is good

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by HumanePain

a) remove all laws regarding personal possession of marijuana, up to say, an ounce or two.

b) remove all laws regarding growing cannabis for personal use (if you're growing an acre, hey, you're busted). May start with say, 10 plants, or by square feet, say 50?

c) tax the selling of cannibis. No brainer.

Did you know until 2006 that was the law in Alaska? Then the repubs took over an banned it during the run-up to elections. That being said they are still fighting the legislation in the courts there now, so its legally a grey area - legislation was passed but advocated argue previous law trumps the new law, so police still aren't going after people because the law is up in the air.

http://www.regulatemarijuanainalaska.org/

Until Palin was on the short list for being president marijuana was legal in Alaska and no one said anything.

It is still legal in California and Nevada under state law, but the bush administration as many know used Federal powers to crack down on establishments that were setup, funded, and taxed by the state which distributed marijuana.

That too now is a legal grey area which is now up in the air while the courts fight it out.