Argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities.
Really? You care to source that? Because everything I can find has them significantly less burdened by drug problems than other European countries or most US States.
Aside from being there many times and seeing the problem first-hand here are a few articles:
The idea that decriminalization leads to less hard drug usage is seen to have an initial positive effect (which could be why you had previously thought it was better) but unfortunately has led to a larger unmaintainable drug problema:
- locations become drug trafficking epicenters
- rubber band effect from expiring and unmaintainable government funding
- number of users growing
The number of Portuguese adults who reported prior use of illicit adult drugs rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12.8% in 2022 — still below European averages but a significant rise nonetheless. Overdose rates now stand at a 12-year high and have doubled in Lisbon since 2019.
Check Portland, OR. Not going so great now. The drugs nowadays are synthetic and designed to be addictive to most people. Decriminalizing them isn’t going to get them off the streets and stop people from getting hooked.
Wharton handwaives the fact that they’re still lower than the European average and much lower on hard drug usage. Yes the usage rates in Portugal went up. The entire world’s usage rate went up. Turns out bad economic times make people turn to drugs to deal with the grind. And it’s not some initial effect either, Portugal did their decriminalization 20 years ago.
As to the effects, the Guardian Article has a great snippet for you-
The real test is among problematic users. Here, the picture is less conclusive. After falling dramatically at first, for instance, drug-induced deaths have begun to climb back up. Even so, the numbers remain small. In 2021, Portugal registered 74 deaths from overdoses (compared with 37 in 2014). In Scotland, by contrast, a country with a population of about half the size, “drug misuse” deaths for 2021 stood at 1,300.
So yeah deaths have gone up but it’s from a miniscule number and is still far below other countries, including ours. The US lost 31 per 100,000 people in 2021. Portugal lost .71 people per 100,000 in 2021. Whatever they’re doing is far more effective than what we’re doing.
Portland did it right before Covid, during the opioid crisis, and never funded the treatment part or took any of the other measures Portugal did. Basically they did it in the worst way possible.
So please attempt to tell me again, without the conservative business school’s mud, how Portugal is some kind of failure?
edit - Oh god that Wharton link is worse than I thought, he’s flogging a book. No wonder he’s doing hot takes. He wants to sell copies.
You originally said that you find Portugal less ‘burdened’, I am just pointing out that that is not the case. Decriminalization takes significant amount of spending and burden for both Portugal and Portland and isn’t showing improvements in the community. If a policy isn’t making an impact it’s not a working policy: this experiment has been alive in Portugal for over 20 years. Feel free to look at more sources, or provide proof that it does work, I’m all ears.
I have heavy drug users in my family. Giving them access to more supply and mobility to shoot up whenever they want isn’t going to help them. They don’t think that way.
