Portugal’s radical drug policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
This scenario doesn&#x27;t just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion.<p>People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it&#x27;s done elsewhere.<p>Gay marriage is a prime example, as it&#x27;s something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there&#x27;s a bunch of people that say it&#x27;s going to cause the corruption of society, or ruin the sanctity of marriage, or cause God to punish us.<p>However, legalising gay marriage in other countries hasn&#x27;t caused the sky to fall. But anti-gay marriage people conveniently ignore this.<p>The same wilful ignorance of existing examples is also applied to Universal Healthcare, drug laws, minimum wages (for either raising or lowering&#x2F;removing), criminal justice, firearms, and education.<p>Obviously countries are all different, but the general ideas are the same. For example, it&#x27;s fairly well established that the less guns there are, the less gun crime there is, however, an Australia or British-style &quot;ban handguns and buy them back off owners&quot; isn&#x27;t going to work in America. But the same principle applies, less handguns = less deaths.