Portugal's radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn't the world copied it?

[Uncle Joe]

Since it decriminalised all drugs in 2001, Portugal has seen dramatic drops in overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime. By Susana Ferreira

When the drugs came, they hit all at once. It was the 80s, and by the time one in 10 people had slipped into the depths of heroin use – bankers, university students, carpenters, socialites, miners – Portugal was in a state of panic.

Álvaro Pereira was working as a family doctor in Olhão in southern Portugal. “People were injecting themselves in the street, in public squares, in gardens,” he told me. “At that time, not a day passed when there wasn’t a robbery at a local business, or a mugging.”


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The crisis began in the south. The 80s were a prosperous time in Olhão, a fishing town 31 miles west of the Spanish border. Coastal waters filled fishermen’s nets from the Gulf of Cádiz to Morocco, tourism was growing, and currency flowed throughout the southern Algarve region. But by the end of the decade, heroin began washing up on Olhão’s shores. Overnight, Pereira’s beloved slice of the Algarve coast became one of the drug capitals of Europe: one in every 100 Portuguese was battling a problematic heroin addiction at that time, but the number was even higher in the south. Headlines in the local press raised the alarm about overdose deaths and rising crime. The rate of HIV infection in Portugal became the highest in the European Union. Pereira recalled desperate patients and families beating a path to his door, terrified, bewildered, begging for help. “I got involved,” he said, “only because I was ignorant.”

In truth, there was a lot of ignorance back then. Forty years of authoritarian rule under the regime established by António Salazar in 1933 had suppressed education, weakened institutions and lowered the school-leaving age, in a strategy intended to keep the population docile. The country was closed to the outside world; people missed out on the experimentation and mind-expanding culture of the 1960s. When the regime ended abruptly in a military coup in 1974, Portugal was suddenly opened to new markets and influences. Under the old regime, Coca-Cola was banned and owning a cigarette lighter required a licence. When marijuana and then heroin began flooding in, the country was utterly unprepared.

(snip)

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it

[JonLP24]

1. K&R

Thanks for posting.

[SamKnause]

2. The U.S. has not followed this model because;

1. There is money to be made in jailing people.

2. Police will not give up the easy money they get from confiscating people's property.

3. There are certain sections of the population the U.S. likes to keep jailed.

4. The U.S. is corrupt from top to bottom.

5. The U.S. is anti science and does not care about the facts.

6. The U.S. believes in governing by vengeance and is not interested in spending tax

dollars on medical services, housing, drug counseling, or job training.


Just a short list.

[Duppers]

5. Good list.

Thanks.

[Uncle Joe]

7. A good and accurate list nonetheless SamKnause.

[flibbitygiblets]

3. Racism and greed, that's why not. /NT

[alwaysinasnit]

4. K&R Thanks for posting.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for this article, Uncle Joe. Rec. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

8. ...