What happened after Portugal decriminalised all drugs? [video] | Hacker News Reader

What happened after Portugal decriminalised all drugs? [video]

bbc.com

50 pointsquickthrower217 comments

There was a significant thread and, to judge by the comments below, a better article 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24704986

Video is slow this is a better article https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...

Strong agree. Fascinating topic, terrible source.

The title of the post is, being charitable, wrong. The title of the video is ” Why Portugal decriminalised all drugs”. It is a 3.5 minutes video that has about two sentences in 20s vaguely talking about good outcomes, but it is mostly about the reasons why they decided for the policy.

No idea why it was posted with a such off title

Don't bother with the video, there's very little information aside from the fact that in 2001, personal use of drugs was decriminalised and by 2009 they could see a drop in HIV infections, overdoses, and deaths.

The one number never mentioned is the number of people taken out of useful life by incapacitating habits.

Sorry but that’s just not true. I was there so I know for a fact that the most destructive kind of addicts simply vanished. I'm not going to say there aren’t many high functioning addicts, there might be.

In the late 90s the streets in certain cities were overflowing with addicts (as in walking corpses almost) and that is simply not the case anymore.

Addicts not having to rob for drugs is good. I'm yet to see any definitive numbers on how many people just buy drugs on dole and stay high at home.

Found the following report.

https://www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au/images/resources/pdf/da...

Spot checked a few numbers against sources and they check out.

Quadrupling meth abuse is impressive.

I'm yet to see any definitive numbers on how many people just buy drugs on dole and stay high at home.

I've yet to see any definitive numbers on any other number of other scenarios of speculative fiction.

Found the following report.

I'm curious what "sources" you spot checked against, given this report is from Australia's Dalgarno Institute. An institute that, quoting them:

"To shift the community and particularly adolescent, young adult and family attitudes about alcohol and other drugs away from the cultural expectation of participation, to consider the option of ‘not having to’.

— via https://www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au/about-us/the-mission.ht...

Cool cool, super cool. Abstinence it is then.

No surprise, given who Isabella Dalgarno was… http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dalgarno-isabella-3353

However you measure life outcomes, the best possible cocaine and heroin intake is exactly zero. The report cites statistical agencies' numbers and they match the sources.

Whoever Dalgarno is or was is irrelevant.

Appeasing drug addictions is a dead end.

So what do you propose is a better solution?

Criminalization of drugs feeds the private prison industry, where the real addiction is to profits.

"The new Portuguese law has also had a striking effect on the size of the country’s prison population. The number of inmates serving time for drug offenses fell by more than half, and today they make up only 21 percent of those incarcerated. A similar reduction in the United States would free 260,000 people — the equivalent of letting the entire population of Buffalo out of jail."

The War on Drugs is Bullshit

https://medium.com/@camplommer/the-war-on-drugs-is-bullshit-...

As a Portuguese citizen, I find it quite fascinating that this topic is trending for quite a while now.

Doing the same in USA won't work due to lack of a public health system, without it is impossible to help people recover from addiction. Providing methadone is the easy bit, having a public network of doctors, therapists and social workers is the key ingredient.

The US has methadone clinics too. I don't know the details of the program, but I've known several people who used them.

Here’s a podcast episode that talks at length about this:

https://overcast.fm/+NnCED_ISg

It’s from a New Zealand perspective - hosted by a young Green Party politician who is looking to change laws here in NZ. It would be relevant to anyone wanting to organise/message in their community or country to do the same.

For context she just won a major election seat in what was a huge left swing in our largest city.

Vague video. I have never looked at Portugal from a country stability point of view. Let's look together.

Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic

"Socialist party" recently took power in the country; 47% of the seats from 36% of the vote. So they have a misrepresentative electoral system that is disenfranchising the vote.

2nd Quarter of 2020: GDP shrank -3.8%

3rd Quarter of 2020: GDP shrank -13.9%

Portugal is in recession.

2013 or so unemployment was at 18% and has been reducing consistently since down to roughly 6%.

Inflation since around 2013 has been very unstable. The country has been teetering on deflation for 7 years in the same period as the high unemployment.

Bank interest rate has been set to 0% since around 2016.

Balance of trade has been negative for at least the last 25 years; the wealth of the country is escaping.

Government debt to GDP is over 100% which is bad; currently at 117.2% reduced from peak of 131.5% in 2016.

The government just balanced their budget.

Corporate tax rate has reduced from 55% down to 21% over the last 35 years.

Personal income tax has increase from 40% to 48% in the last 25 years.

Sales tax is at 23% up from 17% in 2000.

Participation rate was around 60% during the 2000s but during financial crisis reduced to 49% and has increased to around 56%. Huge sign that the incumbant government tinkered with this number to reduce the unemployment figures. Bad sign that other economic numbers have been tinkered with.

Employment rate. 55.8% before Covid, 53.2% now. Unemployment 6.7% to 5.6% now? Confirmed government is erronenously tinkering with the numbers. I would estimate their unemployment rate is up around 10-12% right now.

Minimum wage has increased from 565.83$ to 740.83$. Their unemployment is very high and minimum wage is increasing? This is a very bad sign.

HOLY SHIT, Private debt to GDP peaked around 2012 at 320.8% reduced to around 248.2% currently. This is 148.2% too high. Portugal is in a debt crisis.

Credit rating of BBB. This is the last rating before it's considered 'speculative' or 'junk' so basically Portugal is about to be in financial crisis akin to Greece.

The only good news I can find is that household debt to income has decreased below 100%. It's most recently at 93%.

Portugal is about to go through a very tough decade. Legalization of drugs is the very least of their concerns.

Really do not like video. Too much time.

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