Also, why was it working for a few years and now it's not anymore? Could it be that the pandemic and economic downturn caused more people to turn to drugs and reduced funding? Ah, they hid that answer in the last paragraph...
> After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by the state to nonprofit groups, including the street teams that engage with people who use drugs. The country is now moving to create a new institute aimed at reinvigorating its drug prevention programs.
This is addressed in the article.
It should be telling that during protests, white people were helping protestors by forming a “shield” because they knew the optics of police beating white people would be distasteful.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/white-protesters-form-human-...
Our goal was never to stop drug use, we know it's impossible, but to both make it survivable by victims, stop the violence on the citizens who did nothing wrong but walk past a drug victim, and also stop the spread of the victimization (that's why we hesitate so strongly about Marijuana: there's a 100% chance in increases its victims rather than reduce them).
Minorities are not the only drug victims, a lot of the victims are also in people of the mainstream cultural segment of the population. I'd even argue these victims make it all the more important to help control the problem since they have richer parents who hold more power and vote etc.
Don't lose sight of the point, the evil is the drug, not the police, in the drug fight. The victims of the drug trades are killed by the drug in 99% of the deaths, and by police abuse for the rest. It is not a police problem first and foremost.
Minorities are often the victims of the Justice system in the US. When drugs were in an “inner city” problem. It was all about “poor morals” and “absentee fathers”.
When it happened in “rural America” it was the fault of those evil “illegal immigrants” and the drug companies and “let’s treat it like a disease”.
“ It is not a police problem first and foremost.”
It is when you’re targeted because of the color of your skin.
It's like if we presented corpses of dead drivers on the main streets – I bet it'd greatly lower overspeeding and drunk driving
"Its that good!" "It's so nice! Even when you know it kills you, you still dont want to stop! Not to mention! Quiting is hard! Real hard! Dont try to quit. You will only suffer."
That is the narrative that they push.
The human mind is Strange sometimes.
[1]: <https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-who-smoke>
Whether or not visibility normalizes drug use behaviors, I couldn't say. They were normalized before I was born and I'll be 50 next year.
Visibility is the most important metric of a policy in a democracy. Here in China, it's not ! But are you ready to tell people their opinion doesn't matter because you know the result and the result is good despite what they see with their own eyes ? It's hard to swallow here, might be hard where you live too !