Apparently, we crazies are right.
Portugal legalized all drug use in 2001, reasoning that:
- it was more expensive to incarcerate drug users than to treat them
- interdiction was a waste of money and resources that could be better allocated elsewhere
- it’s very expensive to build prisons and hire police officers to enforce the law
So they abolished most criminal penalties for possession of drugs.
A nightmare was forecast.
It didn’t materialize. In fact, there were a number of positive developments. No miracles, really, but some positive developments, including a huge increase in the number of drug addicts willing to enter programs to address their dependencies.
From Time Magazine:
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Wow. Pretty impressive.
It has long been my opinion that drug abuse in Canada and the U.S. should be treated as a public health issue, not as a criminal issue. With the vicious gang wars in Mexico making the news the last few years, the massive increases in costs of prisons and law enforcement, and the stunning persistence of large scale drug abuse, one wonders what it would take to prove to people that our current drug policies are ineffective.
We have no excuse– a vast majority of citizens already believe that prohibition (of alcohol) was a monumental failure, and help incubate the development of powerful criminal organizations. The only reason large numbers of citizens continue to believe that marijuana and cocaine are different from alcohol is because alcohol was the drug of choice for “respectable” middle-class citizens. They didn’t mind feeling righteous about telling “others” that using intoxicants for pleasure was wrong– as long as it wasn’t their intoxicants.
The same hypocrisy is applied today to psychotropic drugs which provide similar but milder effects, can also be addictive, are often revealed to be ineffective at treating various alleged neuroses, but earn millions for drug company shareholders because they can be patented.
Without a doubt, legalization would result in many people continuing to abuse drugs. How is that a different result from spending billions on interdiction?