14 Years After Decriminalizing Drugs, Portugal’s Bold Risk Paid Off
<i>Portugal&#x27;s performance in perspective: Only three people for every million die of a drug overdose in Portugal, which puts one of the eurozone&#x27;s poorest countries in a different league than rich international powerhouse Germany (17.6 per million) and in a different universe than social democratic utopia Sweden (69.7 per million).</i><p>There&#x27;s a fascinating documentary called <i>American Addict</i> on what nearly happened before this happened:<p>&quot;In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs.  He proclaimed, “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.  In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive(Sharp, 1994, p.1).”  Nixon fought drug abuse on both the supply and demand fronts.&quot; [source]<p>Before criminalization, the trend in society was to start treating people who are afflicted with addictions like the <i>sick people</i> they are, rather than like criminals. There was an entire movement toward recovery as a necessary way of life for some people who cannot moderate alcohol intake (or drugs or whatever), just like insulin is a way of life for diabetics whose pancreases can&#x27;t moderate insulin.<p>Addiction is not a moral issue; it should not be criminalized.  It is a medical issue.  It is a mental health issue.  When it&#x27;s caught early enough, and treated with the proper mental health regimen, it does not have to be debilitating.<p>Instead, what happened with war on drugs was mass-market criminalization... essentially forcing alcoholics and addicts forced into debilitation (hiding &#x2F; shame)... leading to further desire for escapism through the addiction. It&#x27;s a terrible cycle, and the worst part of it is that some counties have made things like DUIs into their bread-and-butter mainstream source of revenue.<p>It&#x27;s hard to say what the trend today is going toward.  The privatization of jails is especially disconcerting; like society wants to trick itself into thinking that the more people it has locked up the &quot;safer&quot; it is.<p>[source]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;e297c&#x2F;poverty_prejudice&#x2F;paradox&#x2F;htele.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;e297c&#x2F;poverty_prejudice&#x2F;parado...</a>