sorry but you're wrong. drugs were not legalized, they were "decriminalized". and yes, that is a difference ;-) fines have been reduced, but only if you do not possess an amount of more than 10 days of personal usage, whatever that may be.

^I can live with that. Too bad the puritanical and uneducated will fight it tooth and nail in this country. My fingers are crossed, California.

The crime rate would fall even more if it was actually legalized, which is not what happened in Portugal. Pretty misleading title.

This particular report is from 2009 btw.

Good video, bad title, can you change it to decriminalise rather than legalise please? There's a big diference.

Title changed

*promote

Invocations (promote) cannot be called by tsarsfield because tsarsfield is not privileged - sorry.

as a portuguese, I vouch for this project.

Drug addiction is a disease. A sickness, and must be dealt with as such. Not by treating addicts as criminals, but by treating them as people in need of assistance.

It won't happen in the United States there's way too much against it. For one thing it looks like they have a social system in place to try and deal with or help drug users. That immediately will be fought tooth and nail by lots of people who don't like the socialization of anything. It's a great idea and it's something that should be studied and referenced when people say drugs cause everything bad...but I don't have high hopes for the US changing anything.

Reminds me of the "Stand your ground" law passed in Florida. Everyone said it was the apocolypse; however, not much changed. A few people felt safer both in civil and legal justification, some tried and failed to abuse the law, and everyone pretty much moves on. No mass killings that criminals get off scott free for...

Of course these are two seperate laws and I won't compare/justify either... It just seems some asstard decides that every effect will massively change society for the better/worse.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Reminds me of the "Stand your ground" law passed in Florida. Everyone said it was the apocolypse; however, not much changed. A few people felt safer both in civil and legal justification, some tried and failed to abuse the law, and everyone pretty much moves on. No mass killings that criminals get off scott free for...
Of course these are two seperate laws and I won't compare/justify either... It just seems some asstard decides that every effect will massively change society for the better/worse.


According to this article in the University of Miami Law Review, Florida's law did change society for the worse. Scroll down to "The Actual Effects" on p. 406 to see an interesting analysis. No, it didn't result in an apocalypse but it did result in legal gray area that has forced prosecutors to use plea bargains in certain cases that clearly would have been murder trials prior to the law. Particularly interesting are the cases cited where people killed unarmed alleged assailants and prosecutors were hesitant to file charges or filed lesser charges as a direct result of the defense invoking the law.

From Wikipedia:
"Individuals found in possession of small quantities of drugs are issued summons. The drugs are confiscated, and the suspect is interviewed by a dissuasion commission including a civil servant, a psychiatrist, and an attorney. Based on the patterns of drug use, the individual may be subject to fines, therapy, or probation. Drug trafficking remains illegal and is prosecuted."

Anyone else think the decrease in usage is simply due to real drug treatment programs being FAR more effective at reducing recidivism than simple imprisonment? It's not that the Portuguese authorities have grown more permissive of hard drug users. It's that they've moved on to "correctional facilities" that actually have a chance of correcting people.

Also, somehow getting your shit confiscated, being arrested, fined and kicked out of the country doesn't sound like an awesome drug vacation. I don't know how they thought it might increase tourism.

Prisons are a big and profitable business in the USA. I don't see decriminalization any time there soon. Money talks, sanity walks.

Either people have faith in people or they don't. The US seems to fall on an odd some arbitrary group of people knows best policy. Decriminalization is a nice step, with less punishment for possesion you dont make people nearly so desperate.

>> ^entr0py:

Also, somehow getting your shit confiscated, being arrested, fined and kicked out of the country doesn't sound like an awesome drug vacation. I don't know how they thought it might increase tourism.


I'm wondering how many heroin addicts really go for european getaways? Most of the ones I see are sleeping under a bridge.

As a libertarian leaning fiscal conservative I approve in principle of this approach. Taking recreational drugs is stupid, and people who do it are stupid. But that's their choice, and if they want to be stupid idiots then OK. The U.S. is far more likely to legalize drugs only if/when they think they can do so in such a way as to collect a ton of taxes in the process.

See also
http://videosift.com/video/Glenn-Greenwald-The-Decriminalization-of-Drugs-in-Portugal

Hey EMPIRE, iberian backup here.

Also as a portuguese I have to say this did wonders for the drug problem. I was but a wee lad but I still remember some of the shitty, shitty, oh so shitty swaths of Lisbon infested with drug addicts. Casal Ventoso comes to mind, looking like a gigantic dung pile right as you enter Lisbon from the 25 de Abril bridge. Mind you, it's still no place to go pick flowers, but the improvement is visible.

As for myself, I lived on the ground floor of an apartment building in the middle of some projects. Next to our house was this apartment block where construction was stopped halfway. The whole thing was a concrete skeleton populated with drug addicts. It's funny now but back then I was instructed to duck into a coffee house if I suspected someone was following me on my way to school. Made me feel like a commando, good times.

Anyway, these days the whole area is cleaned up and looking quite nice (they finished the damn building) and even some of the more disruptive communities seem to have integrated well into the cultural melting pot of eternal suspicion.

As for how this relates to the US, from what I have learned watching The Wire and Fox News it seems like there is a different way of seeing drug users there. Due to the link to violent crime, it looks to me like many americans see drugs = mad, rabid, possibly angy black man criminals. And since Amurka don't negociate with no gawdamn terrarists, you are stuck in an escalation loop. And I'm sad to see that it looks like nothing but a complete crisis will break it. Since the link to violent and organized crime never fully developed over here, people still look at junkies more with pity than anything else.

tl;dr: Life is better because of this. Drug addicts are lost people and fighting them is fighting yourself.

>> ^EMPIRE:

as a portuguese, I vouch for this project.
Drug addiction is a disease. A sickness, and must be dealt with as such. Not by treating addicts as criminals, but by treating them as people in need of assistance.

>> ^kranzfakfa:

it looks to me like many americans see drugs = mad, rabid, possibly angy black man criminals. And since Amurka don't negociate with no gawdamn terrarists, you are stuck in an escalation loop. And I'm sad to see that it looks like nothing but a complete crisis will break it.



America sure loves escalation loops and situations that only complete crises will bring attention to.

For examples, see:
-Banking
-Oil spills
-War on drugs
-Racism
-Foreign policy

A very good point kranzfakfa ^

>> ^entr0py:
Anyone else think the decrease in usage is simply due to real drug treatment programs being FAR more effective at reducing recidivism than simple imprisonment?


Yes. The first time I heard the anecdote about Portugal's "legalization" having reduced usage, it sounded like some sort of libertarian misrepresentation of facts. Sure enough, it absolutely was. No legalization, just decriminalization, and the state "punishes" some drug users with a trip to talk to a therapist, and provides drug addiciton treatment for those who want it.

So basically, compulsory socialized medicine reduced usage.

I'll gladly credit decriminalization with the other positive effects, and I'm definitely on the legalize/decriminalize bandwagon, let's just not go nuts and start pretending that the best way to reduce the commission of illegal acts is to legalize it.

*news

Adding video to channels (News) - requested by NetRunner.

"Only 1% go to prison, most of those falling foul of the doing-drugs-while-not-being-white statutes"

Making all major crime punishable by summary execution would probably cut back on criminals too.



Just saying.

I have to laugh when I think of people assuming drug users are depraved criminals. When will people realize that prohibition only makes things worse? Prohibition causes the crimes, prohibition makes it harder for people to get treatment.

Just remember the prohibition of alcohol and how that completely failed to reduce alcohol consumption, while simultaneously providing a massive income to violent criminals who move and sell the product. It is exactly the same for drugs. When will this foolishness end?

The fat cat "straight arrows" love the fact that drugs are illegal for purely monetary reasons.

More invisible, free money for them to launder.

Hell, the CIA couldn't afford to do half of the shit it does if they couldn't sell drugs.

Who do you think is pushing those bumper crops of opium coming out of Afghanistan?

I don't personally believe in drug use. But it's not the drug use that causes problems. It's criminal behaviour by some people taking drugs. That behaviour is because people make different decisions when they feel they are on "the other side" from Good vs. Bad. "I'm already an xyz, so what does it matter!"

Prohibition, Prostitution, Drug laws - These laws increase crime by 'making criminals' not helping those who need physical, emotional or financial support.