Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

[Luminous Animal]

Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/

"There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal," said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

The number of addicts considered "problematic" -- those who repeatedly use "hard" drugs and intravenous users -- had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

"This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g9C6x99EnFVdFuXw_B8pvDRzLqcA?docId=CNG.e740b6d0077ba8c28f6d1dd931c6f679.5e1

[stufl]

1. Drug (at least marijuana) legalization makes sense in every way...

But because of the "fear" of right wing indignation, this issue will go the way of Global Climate Change, Tax fairness, equality of income opportunity and true immigration reform.

I don't understand how the Right can believe the things it does, but they certainly know how to intimidate the rest of us.

btw...Mexican cartels receive 80% of their revenue from marijuana. So, they kill people, make a fortune and rob the public of badly needed tax revenues. And the city of New York spends $75 million a year on incarcerating those with small quantities of mj found through illegal searches.

Yes, life makes sense....ie. if you are insane!

[Bandit]

2. Keeping Pot illegal is not because of fear of right-wing intimidation

It is all about money... Billions and billions of dollars...Remember no matter how or where money originates it always trickles up... ALWAYS and trickle is probably to tame a word. I should say it sky rockets up....and pretty much stays there...That is why four hundred families in America have more wealth than two hundred million normal Americans, Combined

[stufl]

3. I agree with your statement, but...

the wealthy in the US do not need illegal mj revenue to lead priviledged lives. They have everything else. They have also used their "Conservative" thought patterns to eliminate all critical and creative thinking as to how to generate money for the rest of us.

[Luminous Animal]

4. There is a link to Glenn Greenwald's 2010 white paper on Portugal's decriminalization...

in the Forbes article. I can't link to it on DU because it "suspect" source but it is well worth reading.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Kick.

[malcolmkyle]

6. Good intentions, wishful thinking and pseudoscience are no match for immutable realities.

Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the drugs it prohibits.

* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.

* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement - even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.

* The CIA was/is running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, and moving Cocaine from Central America. This has been well documented. - by the 1989 Kerry Committee, as well as academic researchers such as Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late Gary Webb.

* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste trillions of dollars in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.

* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.

* Prohibition is the "Goose that laid the golden egg" and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of the opium poppy. An estimated 44 % of the heroin produced in Afghanistan, with an estimated annual destination value of US $ 27 Billion, transits through Pakistan. Prohibition has essentially destroyed Pakistan's legal economy and social fabric. We may be about to witness the planet's first civil war in a nation with nuclear capabilities. - Kindly Google 'A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF NARCOTICS-FUNDED TERRORIST GROUPS' Only those opposed or willing to ignore these facts want things the way they are.

* The future depends on whether or not enough of us are willing to take a long look at the tragic results of prohibition. If we continue to skirt the primary issue while refusing to address the root problem then we can expect no other result than a worsening of the current dire situation. - Good intentions, wishful thinking and pseudoscience are no match for the immutable realities of human nature.