Comment by galfarragem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by galfarragem | Hacker News Reader

It's so annoying to read over and over this BS about the success of Portugal's old policies on drugs. It is blatantly false.

I grew up in a top drug spot in Portugal. Things were bad, really bad. I would say that worse was impossible, every extended family had drug problems. After the early 90's peak, slowly it got better, addicts' younger brothers and neighbors had real examples. Doing drugs was not "cool" anymore. That generation was eradicated from my home town (many died by counterfeit drugs or overdose, the rest after jail and detoxs eventually moved somewhere else to start over).

Politicians, as always, take positive results as their own but their influence here was negligible. The only positive policy was free syringe exchange. It certainly had a positive impact on AIDS control. Now drugs are coming back (not nearly as bad as once was). Younger generations didn't witness the human degradation as my generation did. It's a cycle.

What you're talking about sounds just like the eb and flow of drug markets everywhere. So the policy did nothing either way? Far fewer people were incarcerated? That seems like a net positive and smashing success to me. Portugals policies were a success. It's blatantly true.

Despite the law, hardly ever (if ever), anyone was incarcerated because of consuming drugs. Addicts always were jailed because of petty crime. Police couldn't manage to enforce it so government just ditched it.

Like I said before, politicians always take positive results as their own but their influence here was negligible. I was there living next door, the cycle just passed. Now it's coming back and the policies are exactly the same but if you prefer to romanticize it, go ahead.

I'm not romanticizing anything, I'm just sick of the never ending cycle of locking people in cages. I've been to other countries with severe property crimes issues, and they can be awful at times to lose things, but people mostly doing okay. (btw, this is backed by violent crime stats)

So you have some people not having a thing, and compare it to torturing millions (hundreds of thousands?) of innocent people.

> I'm just sick of the never ending cycle of locking people in cages.

So do I. That's why I prefer to lock 1% instead of locking the other 99%.

Not a good idea to keep locking up the sick, poor, and children. Your acceptance, and here it seems like a celebration of locking people in cages for non-violent crimes is sick.

Portuguese courts hardly ever lock somebody with a sentence lower than 5 years. This implies an high degree of violence, not stealing a bike.

My life experience took me here. Yours took you somewhere else. We just have different worldviews that will never match.

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