In 2001, Portugal was experiencing an opioid-involved overdose crisis, similar to the one gripping the United States. The country used criminalization and incarceration to try to manage drug use, while HIV rates among people who use drugs were the highest in Europe.
In response to this emergency, Portugal launched its decriminalization program that year, and the rest is history. Overdose deaths have plummeted by 80 percent, while the percentage of drug users diagnosed with new HIV infections fell from 52 percent in 2000 to 7 percent in 2015. Rates of problematic drug use and drug-related incarceration have also fallen, while numbers of people voluntarily entering treatment for substance use issues have increased.
In March 2018, the US-based advocacy organization Drug Policy Alliance led a large delegation to Portugal to learn more about the impacts of decriminalization of drug use on health outcomes and society. DPA has just released the above video to tell part of the story.
Portugal decriminalized possession of small amounts of any drug—even though the substances themselves remain illegal. In practice, this means police records, jail time and other major sanctions no longer apply to people who use drugs. In the place of a punitive regime, dissuasion commissions were established through the Ministry of Health, without any association with law enforcement or the Ministry of Justice.
When police encounter someone with a small quantity of illegal drugs, the attending officer confiscates the substances and refers the person to a dissuasion commission. These are comprised of a legal professional and a health or social services official.
“If you are a person who uses drugs and appears before the dissuasion commission, you are given access to treatment on demand. If you don’t want to or can’t stop using drugs, harm reduction services are available to anyone who needs them,” says Hannah Getzer, DPA’s senior international policy manager, in the video.
As a result of the commission’s assessment of potential drug dependency, the person may also face sanctions, like fines or required therapy, according to DPA’s briefing paper.
“Drug criminalization fuels the United States’ dual crises of mass criminalization and overdose deaths,” said Widney Brown, managing director of Policy at DPA. “The Portuguese experience demonstrates that decriminalizing drugs—alongside a serious investment in treatment and harm reduction services—can significantly improve public safety and health.”
Screenshot: Drug Policy Alliance
Show Comments
TypicalMoron
Look, the drug war is a lot like trickle down economics.
Sure, the past 40+ years of it have proven to be not just a failure, but a complete failure that has caused nothing but harm…but we gotta stay the course, otherwise…
Well, I’m not sure, but we’ve been doing it for 40+ years now, so it’s the American Way. If we stop now, we’d be admitting that it was a failure, and it’s much better to keep oppressing our fellow Americans than admit that as a country we were wrong about something.
Jim Linkster
OK, go back and take some more opiodes or something. You will never convince normal people in our country that drugs are good for our society, and that there should be no consequences for our actions. Trickle down economics worked. If you lived during the 80s and experienced it firsthand, you’d know that. Historical economic numbers don’t lie.
AuroraBird
No one is saying drugs are “good”. What they’re saying is our approach to use/addiction is all wrong. Trickle down economics did NOT work. 30 years later & look where this Country is.
Jim Linkster
Your boss pays you, because he has the money to do it. Trickle down economics is paying your bills.
James DuMouchel
In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Prohibition… goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes… A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
Alma Lopez
I wouldn’t like my family using cocaine or any drug. I know many homeless that are in the streets because of drugs.
AuroraBird
How many people have you lost to drunk drivers or drinking in general? I, personally, have lost more people to alcohol than I have to drugs. I suspect most people could say the same. Shall we make that illegal too? Oh wait, we DID & look where THAT got us.
Those who refuse to learn their history are doomed to repeat it.