Nine years ago, Portugal decided to try and solve its persistent drugs problems through decriminalisation: the results are encouraging:
As the sweeping reforms went into effect nine years ago, some in Portugal prepared themselves for the worst. They worried that the country would become a junkie nirvana, that many neighborhoods would soon resemble Casal Ventoso, and that tourists would come to Portugal for one reason only: to get high. “We promise sun, beaches, and any drug you like,” complained one fearful politician at the time.
But nearly a decade later, there’s evidence that Portugal’s great drug experiment not only didn’t blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years. Life in Casal Ventoso, Lisbon’s troubled neighborhood, has improved. And new research, published in the British Journal of Criminology, documents just how much things have changed in Portugal. Coauthors Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens report a 63 percent increase in the number of Portuguese drug users in treatment and, shortly after the reforms took hold, a 499 percent increase in the amount of drugs seized — indications, the authors argue, that police officers, freed up from focusing on small-time possession, have been able to target big-time traffickers while drug addicts, no longer in danger of going to prison, have been able to get the help they need.
Here in the Netherlands we’ve had this policy for much longer with largely the same results. Softdrugs like hash and wiet became generally accepted, as normal as drinkign alcohol and — surprise — turned out to be much less dangerous too. Meanwhile the greatest problem with hard drug users, especially heroine addicts, was that they were getting older and less healthy, as the existing users aged and few new people got addicted. Decriminalisation worked, but was awkward as no government ever quite dared to take the step to full legalisation. And now we have a rightwing government that is actively trying to hollow out decriminalisation by ill thought out measures like the “wietpas”. Ironically, it’s only now that other countries like Portugal have discovered the benefits of a more measured antidrugs policy…