Decriminalization is a Huge Success in Portugal
On Friday, I had the opportunity to hear Glenn Greenwald speak at the Cato Institute regarding his Cato-sponsored report, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. You can read the report here and Cato also has a downloadable MP3 of the event.
The back-story here is that Portugal implemented an across-the-board drug decriminalization policy back in 2001. There's been very little discussion and research regarding its impact, hence Cato recruited Greenwald (a genius and extremely popular political blogger) to study Portuguese drug policy. His findings thoroughly illustrate the efficiency of decriminalization towards addressing key drug policy goals, while refuting the myth that removing harsh penalties will lead to increased consumption.
The whole thing utterly shatters most, if not all, arguments that continue to be advanced in support of tough drug laws here in the U.S. and around the world. I found a couple points particularly interesting:
1. When Portugal began looking at alternative policies to address a growing drug problem, they did not consider legalization because it was determined that such a policy would violate international treaties. It's a small country that can't afford to be belligerant. This just goes to show, once again, the extent to which prohibition is not a consensus policy at the international level, but rather an idealogical approach that less powerful nations have been forced to accept.
2. The decision to implement a decriminalization policy emerged through discussion of empirical data, rather than emotional arguments about morals, civil liberties and so forth. I don't know how representative this is of what approach would be most effective in establishing more reasonable policies here in the U.S., but it's certainly worth taking a look at the context in which decriminalization triumphed over other policy options.
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Lessons from Portugal and Holland
Comment posted by Giordano on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 1:06pmThe assumption that a liberalized drug policy will cause a drug pandemic of the type allegedly created by opium use in 19th century China has just received the next 10-penny nail in its venerable coffin.
Drug statistics in Portugal and Holland demonstrate that in today’s world drug use is strictly a lifestyle choice. In other words, some people want to play golf, and some don’t. Some see life as endless toil and submission to the Man, and others don’t. For cultural, professional, personal and medical reasons, illicit drug use appeals to some, but not to others.
Drug use doesn’t increase with the introduction of liberalized drug laws because too many freethinking citizens have already made a conscious decision to use certain drugs by the time the law loosens its grip. The fact that these people followed their own muse, despite false warnings and draconian drug penalties, means that prohibition is absolutely ineffective. As to what is effective: drug use is demonstrably reduced when its forbidden-fruit factor is removed.
An economically parasitic tribe of true believers will continue to cling to their anti-drug ideology while refusing to believe their own eyes regarding the harm reducing effects of the liberal drug policies found in The Netherlands and Portugal. The drug culture that the prohibitionists sought to contain or eliminate by employing medieval methods of social control has acted to spotlight the prohibitionist culture as the most aberrant and socially threatening culture of them all. The threats posed by these violent, bigoted, know-nothing temperance fanatics deserve our fullest attention, both now and once drug prohibition is repealed. The worm has turned.
Giordano