Does Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia support decriminalizing drugs? He just gave a lukewarm indication that he could. But it might be more noise than signal amid the island territory’s overdose crisis.
Gov. Pierluisi was asked about drug policy and mental health on October 17, as the San Juan Daily Star reported.
“This legalization thing is not for me,” he said. “Decriminalization could be done to a certain extent, but with great care and controls, because we do not want to encourage drug use in Puerto Rico; if anything, we want to discourage it.”
“I have always said that drug users, addicts, should not be imprisoned, except when it is a repeat offense and they are committing a series of crimes that do not provide alternatives,” he added.
The governor was appearing alongside the director of Puerto Rico’s Mental Health and Anti-Addiction Services Administration (ASSMCA), Carmen Bonet, who discussed risks associated with illicitly produced fentanyl, and said that her agency has distributed 100,000 naloxone kits and is handing out fentanyl test kits.
Any significance of Pierluisi’s words is limited when he is now a “lame duck” governor, with an election coming up in November. Pierluisi is not running for reelection, after losing his primary bid to be the New Progressive Party nominee.
“Those of us who know harm reduction have been telling them to their face, and they decided not to act. So I’m very skeptical of him now saying, I’m willing to entertain it.”
Rafael Torruella, the executive director of Intercambios Puerto Rico, doubts the sincerity of the governor’s comments. A longtime harm reduction and drug policy reform advocate, Torruella launched what is now the largest syringe service program in Puerto Rico. He also helped found a decriminalization and harm reduction campaign there, and has successfully advocated for legislative steps like getting a naloxone distribution and overdose prevention bill adopted by the Puerto Rico Senate.
“These options were on the table for them,” he told Filter, speaking of decriminalization, harm reduction and the current government. “Those of us who know harm reduction have been telling them to their face, and they decided not to act. So I’m very skeptical of him now saying, I’m willing to entertain it.”
“The current government had a chance to support a drug decriminalization bill, and they chose not to,” Torruella emphasized. “It was presented in the legislature and they voted it down.”
In October 2022, independent Puerto Rico Senator José “Chaco” Vargas Vidot filed a bill to expunge convictions for low-level marijuana possession, responding to President Biden’s executive actions to pardon people with federal marijuana convictions that year. The bill went nowhere.
The same senator went further with other proposals, and “put through a bill to decriminalize all drugs, small amounts for personal use,” Torruella said. “The governor could have acted on that.”
In June, Senator Vargas Vidot also filed a bill to require a government study on the costs of maintaining drug prohibition—and the potential savings if Puerto Rico adopted a decriminalization and harm reduction strategy, with a focus on treatment and rehabilitation.
Torruella explained how Puerto Rico, as an unincorporated territory of the United States that’s geographically isolated from the rest of the country, has both similarities and differences in terms of drug supply, enforcement and related issues.
According to data from the US Sentencing Commission for fiscal year 2021, 31 percent of people sentenced to prison in the US were sentenced for drug convictions. In Puerto Rico, the proportion was 50.6 percent. And while the primary drug involved in US federal criminal cases was methamphetamine (48 percent), in Puerto Rico it was overwhelmingly powder cocaine (80.9 percent).
“In terms of use, there is a lot of fentanyl and a lot of cocaine, which means for us there’s very little meth. We still have a stable cocaine supply.”
In terms of similarities, Torruella noted that nearly all of the heroin tested by his organization, on the eastern side of the island of Puerto Rico, contains fentanyl.
“We’re in the middle of the Caribbean, where drugs flow to the US from producers including Mexico, because the US has such an insatiable need for drugs,” he said. “There is a lot more violence here because we’re feeding the US with drugs. Puerto Rico is not just an end user, but we are a trafficker towards the [upper 48] for all the substances you want.”
“They come through here, it leaves behind all the violence, crime, money laundering, and the use too,” he continued. “In terms of use, there is a lot of fentanyl and a lot of cocaine, which means for us there’s very little crystal meth. We still have a stable cocaine supply.”
According to data publicized by the ASSMCA, Puerto Rico’s Overdose Event Monitoring System recorded 2,140 overdose cases in 2022, of which 755 were fatal. Women and people aged over 44 were found to be particularly vulnerable. Nearly two in three recorded overdoses were reversed, however, underlining the importance of getting naloxone into more people’s hands.
Earlier in October, dozens of people were affected by a spate of overdose incidents in the town of Arecibo. At least eight people reportedly died.
Torruella is concerned that the main official response to such tragedies will be a major increase in police raids.
The threat of arrest, as advocates like Torruella are well aware, makes it less likely that people who use drugs will access harm reduction resources. Decriminalization can mitigate both this problem and the direct harms of criminalization, although it won’t in itself make the drug supply safer or solve harms associated with the illicit trade.
“I [support] drug decriminalization for personal use, so we don’t criminalize the user, but find for them adequate services ranging from harm reduction to treatment services that are evidence-based,” Torruella said.
He described services like overdose prevention centers and drug checking as “the way to go,” in order to reach “a more humane approach to drug use, whether problematic or not.”
He isn’t hopeful that Puerto Rico’s current government will do much to move the dial, however.
Photograph of the Capitol of Puerto Rico by Jorge Láscar via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
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