From wiki real life example how decriminalization and treating consumers as patients and not as a criminals does not = Armageddon. And these are results in a 3rd world country, we can do far better than this.
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The drug policy of Portugal was put in place in 2001, and was legally effective from July 2001. The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than a ten-day supply of that substance.[1]
In April 2009, the Cato Institute published a White Paper about the "decriminalization" of drugs in Portugal,[2] paid for by the Marijuana Policy Project [3] Data about the heroin usage rates of 13-16-year-olds from EMCDDA were used to claim that "decriminalization" has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates. However, drug-related pathologies - such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage - have decreased dramatically.[2][4][5] In 1999, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV amongst injecting drug users in the European Union. The number of newly diagnosed HIV cases among drug users has decreased to 13.4 cases per million in 2009 but that is still high above the European average of 2.85 cases per million.[1] There were 2,000 new cases a year, in a country of 10 million people. 45% of HIV reported AIDS cases recorded in 1997 originated among IV drug users,[6] so targeting drug use was seen as an effective avenue of HIV prevention. The number of heroin users was estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000 at the end of the 1990s.[7] This led to the adoption of The National Strategy for the Fight Against Drugs in 1999. A vast expansion of harm reduction efforts, doubling the investment of public funds in drug treatment and drug prevention services, and changing the legal framework dealing with minor drug offenses were the main elements of the policy thrust.
Observations
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There is little reliable information about drug use, injecting behaviour or addiction treatment in Portugal before 2001, when general population surveys commenced. Before that, there were the indicators on lifetime prevalence amongst youth, collected as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), and some other (less reliable) data available through the EMCDDA.[18]
Thorough studies on how the various efforts have been implemented were not conducted. Thus, a causal effect between strategy efforts and these developments cannot be firmly established.[12] There are, however, statistical indicators that suggest the following correlations between the drug strategy and the following developments, from July 2001 up to 2007:
- Increased uptake of treatment (roughly 60% increase as of 2012.)[12]
- Reduction in new HIV diagnoses amongst drug users by 17%[19] and a general drop of 90% in drug-related HIV infection
- Reduction in drug related deaths, although this reduction has decreased in later years. The number of drug related deaths is now almost on the same level as before the Drug strategy was implemented.[12][19] However, this may be accounted for by improvement in measurement practices, which includes a doubling of toxicological autopsies now being performed, meaning that more drugs related deaths are likely to be recorded.[20]
- Reported lifetime use of "all illicit drugs" increased from 7.8% to 12%, lifetime use of cannabis increased from 7.6% to 11.7%, cocaine use more than doubled, from 0.9% to 1.9%, ecstasy nearly doubled from 0.7% to 1.3%, and heroin increased from 0.7% to 1.1%[19] It has been proposed[by whom?] that this effect may have been related to the candor of interviewees, who may have been inclined to answer more truthfully due to a reduction in the stigma associated with drug use.[20] However, during the same period, the use of heroin and cannabis also increased in Spain and Italy, where drugs for personal use was decriminalised many years earlier than in Portugal [20][21] while the use of Cannabis and heroin decreased in the rest of Western Europe.[22][23] The increase in drug use observed among adults in Portugal was not greater than that seen in nearby countries that did not change their drug laws.[24]
- Drug use among adolescents (13-15 yrs) and "problematic" users declined.[20]
- Drug-related criminal justice workloads decreased.[20]
- Decreased street value of most illicit drugs, some significantly
- The number of drug related deaths has reduced from 131 in 2001 to 20 in 2008.[25] As of 2012, Portugal's drug death toll sat at 3 per million, in comparison to the EU average of 17.3 per million.
- Homicide rate increased from 1.13 per 100 000 in 2000 to 1.76 in 2007, then decreased to 0.96 in 2015 [26][27][28]
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