Portugal's drug policy pays off; US eyes lessons

[Joanne98]

Source: WP

LISBON, Portugal -- These days, Casal Ventoso is an ordinary blue-collar community - mothers push baby strollers, men smoke outside cafes, buses chug up and down the cobbled main street.

Ten years ago, the Lisbon neighborhood was a hellhole, a "drug supermarket" where some 5,000 users lined up every day to buy heroin and sneak into a hillside honeycomb of derelict housing to shoot up. In dark, stinking corners, addicts - some with maggots squirming under track marks - staggered between the occasional corpse, scavenging used, bloody needles.

At that time, Portugal, like the junkies of Casal Ventoso, had hit rock bottom: An estimated 100,000 people - an astonishing 1 percent of its population - were addicted to illegal drugs. So, like anyone with little to lose, the Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000.

Now, the United States, which has waged a 40-year, $1 trillion war on drugs, is looking for answers in tiny Portugal, which is reaping the benefits of what once looked like a dangerous gamble. White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited Portugal in September to learn about its drug reforms, and other countries - including Norway, Denmark, Australia and Peru - have taken interest, too.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/26/AR2010122600610.html

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The "war on drugs" causes drug use DUH!

We've known that for about 15 years. But because we have so many conservative filths in this country, we're stuck on stoopid. Watch them fight this. IDIOTS!

[RKP5637]

1. Exactly. US = United Stupidity n/t

[BeFree]

4. We Are Numb. er. one.

Authoritarianism is what gets us going. "Just say No." ??

[tabatha]

2. If the Obama admin can institute something like this

then it will be a huge legacy.

[sarcasmo]

3. The prison system in this country makes way to much money for this to happen here.

Portugal is doing things the right way. The war on drugs is the wrong way.

[nosmokes]

6. Not to mention the money being made by the DEA, other fed agencies and

a whole passel of local law enforcement departments and private companies that supply them.Add to that the misuse of untold millions of tax dollars that could be used productively(think infrastructure or education) and we're handicapping ourselves and trying to blame it on pot smokers.Still.

It amazes me how our spending curve can go up like a rocket but our learning curve remains as flat as the Kansas prairie.

[sarcasmo]

12. This article shows the power of our DEA across the World.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/world/26wikidrugs.html?_r=1

[theaocp]

5. ANY drug czar will not

care one whit about Portugal's actual successes. There is too much $$$ involved in our drug war to find reasonable, humane, and common sense solutions. This will be accomplished by incremental legalization throughout the states. The feds will just be dragged along eventually, kicking and screaming.

[FreakinDJ]

7. Think of the Money we would save on Incarceration alone

Cost more to keep a drug offender in California State Prison then it does to send our children to a 4 year University

[Webster Green]

8. So, our fascist drug czar traveled to Portugal to check it out.

What a waste of money. He is a fucking asshole. He'll do nothing that actually makes any sense.

[truedelphi]

14. How legislation works in America:

First, pass some really dick wad style of legislation. (Like having a War on Drugs, with mandatory sentences for everyone but the people at top who can make a deal with the Authorities.)

Then occasionally admit that it isn't working.

Then sit back and watch the lobbyist money come in to candidates of choice (In this case, Maybe Mr Barack Obama?) from the Big Banks that Launder the Money and also the Drug cartels that have "legit" family members here in the USA.

Then keep the laws as they were. (The above scenario works really well with hazardous stuff like pesticides also - the minute the EPA starts to say they will get tough on pesticides, boy oh boy, does the money flow in.)

[loudsue]

28. The bush crime family is one of the biggest drug cartels in the USA.

Always have been. The research on DU way back in the early 2000's showed that, through some sort of export company owned by bush family ancestors, heroin and opium were part of their early fortune. They were involved up to their eyeballs in Mena, Arkansas....where Bill Clinton was, of course, governor.

The war on drugs was just one of the ways the bush cartel has milked billions out of taxpayer's pockets. The bank bailout was another. 9/11 was another. Barrick gold was another. The Texas Rangers stadium was chump change.

[truedelphi]

34. Ain't it the truth?

When I watched the movie about the cocaine trade in America, (Cannot remember the name) and it shows involvement on all levels of society, from the guy running for office, to the teenage daughter with the drug problem, whenever the really clean cut community leader (who happened to be the bad ass drug king pin behind the facade), was on screen, all I could think was: "Wonder if this is character was modelled on Jeb Bush?"

[boppers]

18. Law requires just that.

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/drug-czar-required/

[No Elephants]

9. "Follow the money."

[NV Whino]

10. Well, at least someone is thinking about it

Of course implementing action is something else again.

[northernlights]

11. 15 years? More like since Prohibition...the war on alcohol was our first lesson

which we clearly failed to learn.

[kath]

19. And now we've got the stoopid war on alcohol for young adults

(18-20 year olds), which has just led to driving their drinking underground and hugely increased rates of binge drinking (and ambulance runs to ERs for alcohol poisoning) on college campuses.
Prohibition didn't work back in the '30s, so what the hell made them think it would work for young adults now? Only country in the world with such a high drinking age.

The war on other drugs is much worse, of course. But the Prison Industrial Complex just LOVES the War on (some people with some)Drugs.

[sulphurdunn]

13. Who wants drug law reform here?

The War on Drugs benefits everyone involved: from those promoting it to those fighting it, from the cartels to the banks to law enforcement to the prison industry, and God only knows who else to the tune of billions and billions of dollars annually. Decriminalizing drugs would put a huge hole in the GDP. Then again, it might be OK with the health insurance industry if the public paid for it to insure the addicts.

[riverbendviewgal]

15. William F. Buckley gave a speech on the lost war

Pretty amazing as he was so conservative.


"We ARE speaking of a plague that consumes an estimated $75 billion per year
of public money, exacts an estimated $70 billion a year from consumers, is
responsible for nearly 50 per cent of the million Americans who are today in
jail, occupies an estimated 50 per cent of the trial time of our judiciary,
and takes the time of 400,000 policemen yet a plague for which no cure is at
hand, nor in prospect. Perhaps you, ladies and gentlemen of the Bar, will
understand it if I chronicle my own itinerary on the subject of drugs and
public policy."

\\http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg28762.html

[quakerboy]

31. Yup. Wonder how many Tea Party

"Gubmint is too big" types would really be willing to reduce the size of it. Here's one quick and easy way.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. People are makinmg money off the war on drugs..as they are on all the wars we are fighting

Monied interests would never allow the war on drugs to end....

[kath]

20. Yeppers. It 's always all about the money.

[azul]

17. Funding for black ops in CIA territority is a no go.

Who can train guerrillas by the dozens?
Send them out to kill their untrained cousins?
Fucking-a man!
CIA Man!
-Fugs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW9cCWm53H4

[cowcommander]

21. In order for this to work, we need UHC first

[obxhead]

22. 4 Presidents have formed commissions to study marijuana laws.

Each commission called for a minimum of decriminalization of marijuana and recommended full legalization. Each President instead worked to intensify the war on marijuana and increased the criminal penalties for it.

I don't know why we even bother studying anything in this country. Their minds are made up before they even think of forming these commissions.

(I believe it was Nixon, LBJ, Carter, and Raygun who formed the studies.)

[progressoid]

29. I never expect a good outcoume any time a commission is formed.

Seems like it's just a way to distract and delay.

[obxhead]

30. I'm starting to think commission

is government speak for something along the lines of.... warning, we are about to fuck you over, but first we want to be told not to do that.

[defendandprotect]

23. Agree ... way US should be going ....

too much money involved - too much MIC involvement --

but still hoping it will happen somehow!!

[eridani]

24. Our unemployment rate would be far worse if a large chunk of employees

--of the prison industrial complex got laid off. Of course we could always fund infrastructure and education instead, but that would require evil gummint action.

[Le Taz Hot]

25. Don't look now, but

"conservative filth" are not the only ones against legalization. Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Brown ALL opposed Prop. 19 in California.

[dorkulon]

26. Our last 3 presidents have smoked pot. Last 2 have done coke.

How on earth they could look at themselves in the mirror while their constituents languished in prisons for the same thing is beyond me.

[reggie the dog]

27. because they know that as they look in the mirror and do a line

they have no risk of going to jail for it

[kath]

35. Yep - if you're poor, you go to jail. If you're Noelle Bush, not so much.

[maryf]

32. But, but, how will we maintain the slave labor force in our prisons...

K&R

[felix_numinous]

33. War is sold

to us as a righteous destructive force that will be used surgically to remove a necessary threat, but it rarely does just that. Destructive power is nearly impossible to control--rarely has history shown anyone competent enough to wield it with restraint.

The organizations that wage these wars on _______ have been given too much power for too long, and need to be reminded of their original mission--which was to protect and serve The People.

[RainDog]

36. Maybe Republicans and Democrats can be persuaded to spend less money on failed policy

instead of asking grandmas to eat cat food for the sake of banker profits.

of course, that would assume that the govt gives a shit - and, of course, the only people that matter in the U.S. are the wealthy when it comes to legislative reform.