Quote from the article:
> A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001
So, No.
> A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001
So, No.
> Overdose rates have hit 12-year highs and almost doubled in Lisbon from 2019 to 2023. Sewage samples in Lisbon show cocaine and ketamine detection is now among the highest in Europe, with elevated weekend rates suggesting party-heavy usage. In Porto, the collection of drug-related debris from city streets surged 24 percent between 2021 and 2022, with this year on track to far outpace the last. Crime — including robbery in public spaces — spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use.
> overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent.
> Residents have launched U.S.-style neighborhood watches and hired private security guards — something exceedingly rare in Europe.
> 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.
You'll notice that 2012 comes before 2019.
Why did it take nearly a decade to happen, then happen all at once?
Seems like something else changed more recently than the funding in 2012.
Well, by that logic clearly decriminalization wasn't the cause. Why would the negative effect take nearly two decades to happen, then happen all at once? Seems like something else changed more recently than the decriminalization in 2001.
----
Snarkiness aside, I find these discussions on HN to be mostly pointless and circular, precisely for this reason. There's very little actually substantive discussion happening under this article. A trend was noticed, one side has an explanation, the other side says "nah, I don't think that's it" and then we go in circles saying "hmmm... doesn't sound convincing to me" and meme a bit about Singapore and Seattle. It's HN at its worst.
That this comment exists almost immediately after another comment further upstream saying "well, of course we wouldn't expect to see the negative effects of decriminalization immediately" to me sums up how entirely arbitrary online arguments about decriminalization often are.
Much of Europe was locked down making travel often impossible. All that really says is there is a lot of drug tourism.
> Crime — including robbery in public spaces — spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022
I wonder what else changed between 2021 and 2022 that could have caused robbery in public spaces to spike.
So many things have changed in Portugal over the last decade, Lisbon and Porto in particular, that looking just at drug policy is insufficient. In particular, cost of living and immigration from poorer countries (both correlated with “number of desperate people”) have risen significantly.
For instance, Sweden implemented an extremely restrictive drug policy focused on scaring people from trying drugs at all, at the expense of existing users who were shunned and penalized harshly. It now has one of the highest overdose mortality rates in Europe and a well-known gang violence problem that’s unprecedented in its history or in any of the otherwise similar countries.
I personally think these “clever” policies where you try to optimize for a proxy metric are just moralistic and unscientific garbage. Not to mention the consequences of giving the task (and the funding) to the criminal justice system first. If we transferred the issues of smoking cessation or alcoholism to the police, what would we expect to happen?
Similar to speeding tickets in the US. Speeding is against the law, but minor infractions are not criminal offenses.