The Portuguese Experiment: Did Drug Decriminalization Work? | Hacker News Reader

The Portuguese Experiment: Did Drug Decriminalization Work?

time.com

64 pointsEGF30 comments

This is a very encouraging report. In Portugal there was a significant drop in drug usage, hospitalization, and deaths after decriminalization. The savings in enforcement paid for improved treatment. Selling drugs was not decriminalized.

The situation here in CA is insane. Medical use of marijuana is legal, but the feds raid the shops. We spend billions turning minor drug dealers and users into prisoners and billions more building new prisons. The prison guards union is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the state. I remember reading around the turn of the century that nationally 40% of black males, teens to early 20's, were on parole, in jail, or awaiting trial. Insane.

It seems that decriminalization reduces the attractiveness of drugs. I speculate that it reduces peer pressure, hard sell drug dealers, and the profitability of drug sales.

The title is wrong. Portugal hasn't legalised drugs, but rather decriminalised possession for personal use. In effect they have the same laws, but whereas users could be sent to prison before they will now instead be assessed and treated by the state. Proper legalisation would remove all consequences of drug use, rather than just reducing penalties. To argue that this proves any arguments for or against legalisation is wrong in my opinion.

The title is not completely right, but then, it's a newspaper article title, and it explains it all perfectly in the body of the article.

Of course the article does provide good argumenst for legislation. While they may not have completely legalised it, it does show that a lot less harsh punishment has a very positive effect.

You are right an upon further review I wanted to change the title. What would be a better representation of a summary without getting too long? "Effects of Portugals changes to drug possession punishment?" I keep getting too jumbled, and would like to properly rename if you can help.

How about "Effect of decriminalizing drugs in Portugal - stats included"?

Don't take my comment personally. The title Time gave the article is misleading too especially since they later on quote someone who calls it decriminalization.

Uh, so, I usually really hate comments about how an article isn't related to HN, but with this submission and the one about China on the front page, I felt like I needed to write one too.

I sort of feel like I'm looking at the front page of CNN or the NYT when I see stories about national legalization of drugs and the problems in a nation's infrastructure.

I think some of us have taken the guideline of 'stories that are interesting to hackers' to a bit of an extreme. It's almost become 'ok, some hackers take drugs, this story is about drugs, it should be interesting.' I still think that stories submitted should have a basic level of hackishness to them. As someone who'd consider himself a non-hacker, I find more hack related stories to be much more interesting than any of these Time/etc. articles, and I come here to read them because I wouldn't have been able to find them elsewhere, whereas these globally related articles are relatively easy to come by.

So, flag. And the other one.

I don't mind a _handful_ of non-tech articles.

I'm more interested in the comments: what do smart tech people think about this or that? Then I add my own comment, and the smart bit gets cleared. Ah well.

In any case, I assume the point-based algorithm is sufficient for moderating which articles should reach the front page.... Just my two cents' worth.

We've really had enough marijuana threads already. And past experience has shown that they lead to no useful discussion whatsoever.

Upvoted. The problem is not that this article is not interesting: it is. But this is a site for a different kind of news. But there are many places (reddit, digg, slashdot to name a few) where you can read about this, and very few places dedicated to "hacker news". Not only that, but the proportion of hacker/non-hacker new is heavy on the side of non-hacker. So in order to keep this site useful it's very important to keep it on topic. Otherwise it would become a good site, but no longer unique.

Edit: also flagged btw. Complaining is ok, but it's good to remember from time to time there is a button for this kind of thing.

A reasonable point. Then again, drug use is arguably the primordial hack to your own wetware, and drug policy indirectly says something about how the state approaches individual cases it might not understand - consider the history of PGP, or whether Linux would have been developed in the US. So I vote for relevant, although only very peripherally.

Wow, I didn't know the Netherlands had never really legalized cannabis...

Also, I'm from Portugal, and although I knew being caught using some drugs would take no action from the police, I didn't know we were that liberal...

Anyway, whoever is caught selling goes to jail...

The situation in the Netherlands is a little more complicated than the article leads you to believe.

It is legal to possess cannabis, it is also legal to grow it at home, as long as it is for personal use.

What they say about not enforcing the laws against the shops is partly true. The shops are allowed to have a very small amount in stock. However, the legal amount is ridiculously small, and less than what most stores sell in a day. The shops solve this by having regular drops during the day.

I'm not completely sure, but I believe that the warehouses where the shops get their drops from are legally allowed. And I'm also not completely sure about the legallity of importing cannabis from other countries, although it does happen a lot.

False. Possession is illegal in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a signatory to international treaties which it would have to back out of to formally legalize certain drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands#...

ah right, there is no cop that will arrest you for it, nor is there a judge that will sentence you if you do get arrested.

sorry that I thought it was legal, what was I thinking ;-)

There are all sorts of things that you won't get arrested for that aren't legal.

The big red flag is the sponsor - the CATO institute is hardcore pro-legalization. I love the findings as much as the next libertarian but the report would be more persuasive if it came from a neutral commission.

Are you as well doubting Amnesty International findings simply because they are anti-torture? What is wrong with people having convictions and spending money to find facts that support these convictions?

I find the trend towards quick character assassination (rather than looking at the facts) quite annoying. We see it in climate debate, for example, way too often.

"What is wrong with people having convictions and spending money to find facts that support these convictions?"

That's rationalization instead of rationality. Rationality dictates discovering the facts BEFORE you reach the conclusions.

They're still actual facts that other people can use to reach their own conclusions.

Cleverly omitted are other actual facts that other people can use to reach conclusions other than your own.

Maybe an adversarial method would be a better way of addressing these issues in practice, but only when we're responsible enough to read both sides.

Also, it's intellectually dishonest to pick your conclusions first and find the facts later. Even if CATO finds good facts (I'm sure they do), there is most definitely something "wrong with" them.

maybe I should have added the disclaimer - I donate to the CATO institute. I don't doubt the findings, I doubt their value as a political tool because everyone will say "they came from the CATO institute!"

I don't think having an opinion should preclude anyone from producing these kind of reports or reduce their persuasiveness. Personally I'd prefer to read a report from an organisation, such as the CATO institute whose political opinions are well known to me, than an "independent" government commission. At least then I know where they stand.

Exactly, I know where they stand -- so I know to take whatever their findings with a grain of salt. What's that old adage about stats again?

This is an intellectually lazy position, like dismissing a the findings of a scientific paper on the basis that the authors began with a hypothesis and sought evidence of its truth. Of course that happens, which is why the quality of sources and methodology should be taken into account.

I haven't real the full paper yet, but the sourcing is impeccable, using government statistics and peer-reviewed papers rather than private surveys or anecdotal evidence.

"What's that old adage about stats again?"

I think "he uses statistics as a drunk man uses a lightpost, for support rather than illumination" is apropos here.

How about "People who generically object to statistics KNOW their own position can't be rationally supported."

I haven't said anything about their stats or methodologies, but I don't know how you can outright dismiss the reputation of the organization when accessing those very things.

Link to the Cato Institute, where you can download the report they sponsored: http://cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080

Singapore also have an excelent system to minimize drug use.

Capital punishment for possession, you mean? I think that's a little extreme, even though I am Singaporean.

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