What Happened When Portugal Decriminalized Drugs? (resounding SUCCESS)

The government in Portugal has no plans to back down. Although the Netherlands is the European country most associated with liberal drug laws, it has already been ten years since Portugal became the first European nation to take the brave step of decriminalizing possession of all drugs within its borders—from marijuana to heroin, and everything in between. This controversial move went into effect in June of 2001, in response to the country’s spiraling HIV/AIDS statistics. While many critics in the poor and largely conservative country attacked the sea change in drug policy, fearing it would lead to drug tourism while simultaneously worsening the country’s already shockingly high rate of hard drug use, a report published in 2009 by the Cato Institute tells a different story. Glenn Greenwald, the attorney and author who conducted the research, told Time: “Judging by every metric, drug decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country.

h/t TalesFromTheLou’s Blog

I’ve been following this story for a while. It’s so incredibly lovely and simple. Sadly most Americans can’t generally grasp this sort of sense.

Here is an article about the great success too:

Ten Years Ago Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs.
What Happened Next?When the drug-drenched nation legalized all drugs within its borders, most critics predicted disaster. Instead drug use has plunged dramatically (the above quote that I got on the youtube channel is actually from this article)