United Liberty
Portugal: A Study in Decriminalization
Thu, 06/28/2012 - 2:10pm | posted by Ron Davis
When I write about decriminalization and ending the War on Drugs, my libertarian friends cheer while my Republican friends roll their eyes and say “Oh, he’s talking that crazy talk again.” They tell me that decriminalizing drugs will cause drug usage to run rampant, that 12 year olds will be smoking marijuana, and that addiction rates will be at an all time high.
As if those things aren’t already true.
I always insist, as most libertarians do, that decriminalizing drugs isn’t an endorsement of drug usage, that addiction rates will come down, and that we’d spend a lot less money if we’d just pay for treatment for addicts.
(Those who say libertarians are never willing to compromise should take note: libertarians would gladly let government pay for addiction treatment for abusers instead of spending the money for prosecution and incarceration. A purely libertarian stance would be to decriminalize drugs and insist private charities handle drug rehab programs.)
On July 1, 2001, Portugal decided to give the libertarian approach a try: it decriminalized all drugs. Yes, marijuana, but also drugs like cocaine and heroin. Notice they didn’t legalize drugs; they decriminalized them. The difference is that while drug possession and usage is still banned, violations relating to personal usage are not prosecuted. Drug trafficking, on the other hand, is still prosecuted.
So, ten years after the decriminalization, Portugal was full of addicts and everyone was high all the time, right? Wrong.
According to health experts in portugal, the experiment has worked. Addictions were down about half – half – in a 10-year period. Awareness and prevention programs, along with the decriminalization, are suspected to have had a major impact in that drop.
Prohibition doesn’t work. It never will. We need to follow Portugal’s example on this issue. Drug usage will decrease; addictions will decrease; government spending will decrease, and freedom will increase.
The Libertarians there sold it to the Portuguese in part by asking if people “wanted to be like unmanly US conservatives who needed a law to control their passions’ —or were they Portuguese?
The http://www.Libertarian-International.org (go back a few pages) has some other interesting stuff on how it happened.
The international presses have referred with outlandish insistence the
Portuguese “resounding success” of drugs decriminalization launched in 2001
in prejudice of the guidelines of the UN Conventions of which Portugal is a
signatory.
Respect for the truth - the manipulation of the facts and numbers is
unacceptable - requires to clarify the real consequences of the implantation
of the new Portuguese policy.
So the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal did not in any way decrease
levels of consumption, but on the contrary. In reality, “the consumption of
drugs in Portugal increased by 4.2% - the percentage of people who have
experimented with drugs at least once in their lifetime increased from 7.8%
in 2001 to 12% in 2007 (IDT-Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction
Portuguese, 2008).
With regard to the consumption of cocaine “the latest data (surveys from
2005-2007) confirms the increasing trend during the last year in France,
Ireland, Spain, The United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark and Portugal” (EMCDDA
2008). While rates of use of cocaine and amphetamine doubled in Portugal,
seizures of cocaine have increased sevenfold between 2001 and 2006, the
sixth highest in the world (WDR-World Drug Report, 2009).
With regard to hashish - “It is difficult to assess the trends and
intensive use of hashish in Europe, but among the countries that
participated in field trials, between 2004 and 2007 (France, Spain,
Ireland, Greece, Italy, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and Portugal) there
was an average increase of approximately 20% ” (EMCDDA, 2008).
“In Portugal, since decriminalization has been implemented, the number of
homicides related to drugs has increased 40%. “It was the only European
country with a significant increase in (drug-related) murders between 2001
and 2006” (WDR, 2009).
| Manuel Pinto Coelho, M.D., Ph.D. in Educational Sciences | Visiting
Professor at UTAD University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro | Member and
Researcher at CIDESD - Research Center in Sports Sciences, Health and Human
Development | APLD - Association for a Drug Free Portugal, Chairman
Manuel
I am really grateful for you taking the trouble to correct the Portuguese myth. I notive that those who prasie the Portugal decriminalisation are almost invariably from outside Portugal.
Decriminalisation is seen by the legalisation lobby as just a staging post on their route to full legalisation of all drugs. That is why they argue so strongly for it. It is very difficult to see how the human condition would be made better by more use of more drugs but still they argue. They are largely financed by George Soros.
Most of the comentators do not have your first hand experience Manuel. Keep up the good work.
A nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were “decriminalized,” not “legalized.” Get online deals of watches at casio watches deals website.
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