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Good for Portugal, they've taken some positive steps. Their idea to treat drug usage as a disease is silly, tho. The war on drugs in America needs to end NOW. It's a total waste of money and time. Americans shouldn't be locked up for having the wrong plant in their pocket.
But, What would happen to the private prison industry? Next people will be wanting to raise speed limits on our interstates, That could impact insurers bottom line. Gosh the poor old job creaters
From your article selling is still illegal but if your caught using or possessing you go to a separate court where each case it appears is looked at individually and they are offered counseling etc. I see no reason why we can't take that route here. There could be no argument from those who say you can't legalize it because well you aren't your just not making it a criminal offense to possess or use. Now if someone continues to use and get caught over and over and over again should they then face criminal charges I guess is the question especially if they don't attempt to rehab themselves. Sounds like a common sense approach to me which means it will never be done. lol
Before you go out thinking this is the solution to all of our prisons problems lets look at some facts.
Fact 1: Population of Portugal - 10,637,000 which is about a million more people than the population of Ohio. Heck New York has over 8 million.
Fact 2: There amazing success that they are talking about is the reduction of drug addicts from 100,000 to 50,000 people in a period of ten years. While this is a good thing, it is obviously not stopping the drug problem, just slowing it down a bit.
Fact 3: Instead of throwing users in jail, they are treating the users the same as if they had a disease. In a small country like Portugal this can work, I am sure they could find bed space for 100,000 people over a period of 10 years without to much trouble. In the United States where we already have enough health care issues to last us a lifetime, where would we find the resources to handle this new influx of drug addicts?
Fact 4: Portugal's move to decriminalize does not mean people can carry around, use, and sell drugs free from police interference. That would be legalization. Rather, all drugs are "decriminalized," meaning drug possession, distribution, and use is still illegal. While distribution and trafficking is still a criminal offense, possession and use is moved out of criminal courts and into a special court where each offender's unique situation is judged by legal experts, psychologists, and social workers.
Decriminalization might be considered a success in Portugal (I would like to see how much money was spent on the new system as opposed to how much was being spent by simply putting them in jail before I pass judgment) but the United States is just to big for a system like this to work.
The cost is of course always an issue but spending what around 50K to keep folks behind bars a year each or whatever the number is is pretty expensive. Now thinking how much it would cost to create all these treatment programs all over the country in every state and municipality who knows what the final tally would be? Maybe make em pay for it themselves? What a novel idea. Make the meth lab cookers pay to clean up their own mess too instead of the taxpayers having to pay for hazmat crews and on and on.
Fact 1: Population of Portugal - 10,637,000 which is about a million more people than the population of Ohio. Heck New York has over 8 million.
So... why not let individual states implement things like this? Like you note, Portugal has bigger population than many American states, and it can manage its system fairly well.
Reported lifetime use of "all illicit drugs" increased from 7.8% to 12%, lifetime use of cannabis increased from 7.6% to 11.7%, cocaine use more than doubled, from 0.9% to 1.9%, ecstasy nearly doubled from 0.7% to 1.3%, and heroin increased from 0.7% to 1.1%
Is this really what we want here is US? More than double the use of cocaine and other hard drugs?
No, no thanks
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