Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/28/why-portugals-decriminalizat.html
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Powerful argument in favor of decriminalization.
Portugal may be small but comparing their six drug deaths to the 245 in the US was painful.
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Those numbers are adjusted for population. For every 1 million in population, Portugal had 6 drug deaths. The USA had 245 – about a 20:1 ratio.
Assuming the figures they provide are correct, if you live in the US, you’re 20 times more likely to die from drug use than if you live in Portugal.
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Wouldn’t that be about 40:1?
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So roughly 60 drug related deaths in Portugal and 79,000 in the U.S.?
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Just because there’s a reasonable humane response to our problem certainly doesn’t mean the US is even remotely interested. Think of the money to be made off of other peoples misery.
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Those figures sound roughly correct. If anything the US figure may be a bit low. (For various reasons, US drug overdoses appear to be under reported. So, roughly 80k might be a minimum.)
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Now if they could do something about the once or twice a block offer to sell you hashish as you walk through Lisbon that would be great. I’ve got no problem with legalization, it’s all the supposed dealers on the street I want to see locked up.
Misery Companies love company misery.
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We need to get this information to Jeff Sessions immediately. That is one hombre who looks for practical solutions to emergent issues and will take action when provided with new data.
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Whoops! You are correct. Yes, the ratio should be 40:1. Thanks for the correction.
And I wasn’t on drugs when I ran my calculations! Or maybe it’s just my American education failings showing up.
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Hash ain’t no big deal. And those folks sellin’ on the street are small-fries just trying to have an income.
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I’m just glad we have one country willing to try this, so when debates on decriminalization pop up we actually have an example to use, instead of a hypothetical.
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Decriminalize drugs?
Think of the poor drug squads and correctional officers court workers and mafia members who would be thrown on the dole.
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There was a US police department just a few weeks ago attempting to argue that we need to maintain cannabis prohibition in order to protect the jobs of sniffer dogs.
No, I’m not joking.
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I could think of lots of reasons to take criminal law out of drug use, but I would never have dared to guess it would be this effective at reducing deaths. Canada is set to legalize cannabis soon. That won’t save lives since cannabis doesn’t kill people, but hopefully we can build on that and get to other drugs.
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But police and prisons do. So it will save lives.
There’s also evidence that cannabis legalisation reduces alcohol consumption, IIRC.
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Michael Moore talks about this in Where to Invade Next from 2015, its really really good.
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But that will cut in to those lovely, lucrative excise duties. 
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Wellington, just say no
