Sensible Erection | In 2001 Portugal Decriminalized Drugs

Saturday, 14 March 2009

In 2001 Portugal Decriminalized Drugs

quote [ This new law did not legalize drug use, but removed criminal penalties for use, possession, and acquisition for all illicit drugs in quantities up to a 10-day supply. ]

Where the hell have I been? The CATO Institute hired Glenn Greenwald to go and write a study on the effects/successes and lack thereof (see extended). Report to be released on April 3rd.

Please note - this was decriminalization, not legalization.

Greenwald report to CATO
Greenwald's blurb on his Salon blog
BFDPP report from December 2007 <--- PDF!

[politics] [by Lord of the Barnyard@10:41pmGMT] [+8 Informative]

Comments

Lord of the Barnyard said @ 10:43pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Informative]

astropig7 said @ 10:48pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Mapmakers should avoid colouring Scandinavia red. Frankly, it just looks like an enraged penis.

DarkShadowRavenDragonGrrl69 said @ 3:04am GMT on 15th Mar
Yeah, and who wears blue boots anyway?

astropig7 said @ 3:52am GMT on 16th Mar
*sigh* Almost two days and no one made the obvious reply. For the sake of completion, “Bend over, I’ll show you an enraged penis.”

plexer said @ 10:57pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
That is one poorly colored map. Also - the distinction between Legal and Essentially Legal is important. The only reason to lump them into the same category is to get more blue colored countries.

willrogers said @ 11:07pm GMT on 14th Mar
Yeah, but since "essentially legal" is lumped in with "legal" rather than "decriminalized" I think it's safe to say that essentially legal means that it is closer to being officially legal than simply decriminalized, at least according to this map.

But, yeah, those are some poorly picked colors, especially for the reddish hues, as there is a big difference between enforced and unenforced drug laws.

plexer said @ 11:54pm GMT on 14th Mar
Essentially Legal and Legal will make all the difference to someone on their day in court. If it isn't *actually* legal, then its either decriminalized or illegal. There is no "almost legal".

Naruki said @ 12:17am GMT on 15th Mar
I'm also concerned about the fact they have gray for no info, but it's never used. Whereas there are all these white areas, so what does that mean?

plexer said @ 12:57am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
White is ocean. Blue is land. Go figure.

derekd said @ 1:32am GMT on 15th Mar
You sir, are an imbecile.

plexer said @ 2:31am GMT on 15th Mar
How do you figure?

Naruki said @ 12:35pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
Hopefully (you'll laugh, I know) he was talking about me.

killerp said @ 5:26am GMT on 15th Mar
Yeah, how do you figure? Backing up that other guy on this one

Naruki said @ 12:34pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:2 Funny]
Shit, no wonder I was confused. I thought it was a map of the US.

plexer said @ 1:44pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
+1 for falling victim to the "Worst map ever". I'm not sure if Drugs Are Bad or not, but this is certainly evidence that they affect cartography.

plexer said @ 1:45pm GMT on 15th Mar
Apparently not +1. Fuck. Marck, can I please make it so you can moderate after replying?

hellboy said @ 1:43am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
Vatican City and San Morino are gray.

hellboy said @ 1:45am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
...as are Andorra and Monaco.

plexer said @ 2:32am GMT on 15th Mar
It would be interesting to see the map extended to show who owns which piece of ocean, and to show whether the penalties for transporting drugs via ocean are the same as possessing them on land.

EPT said @ 1:06am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
"But your honour, she was almost legal!"

Volcaos said @ 10:46pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
Hi from Portugal. *toke*

yevishere said @ 11:06pm GMT on 14th Mar
How is it over there? Are you getting less or more crime since then?

rehab said @ 11:08pm GMT on 14th Mar
Depends on how you define drug related offences

rehab said @ 11:13pm GMT on 14th Mar
There has also been a huge increase in the amount of cocaine seized in Portual with it now accounting for 26% of cocaine seized in europe.

Context said @ 11:53pm GMT on 14th Mar
I would say that has just as much to do with police having more time to address serious drug trafficking.

Naruki said @ 12:19am GMT on 15th Mar
It could also have to do with the fact that they are seen as a good place to export from.

And that would be a drastically unfair metric to hold against them.

Speed said @ 6:04pm GMT on 17th Mar
We have a wide sealine (maybe the correct term is shore?) and we're close to Morocco. Most of the cocaine seized has central europe as its destination.

EPT said @ 9:48pm GMT on 17th Mar
For the context you're using, the best word is probably 'coast'.

Volcaos said @ 11:17pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Interesting]
The simple fact that posessing drugs is no longer a crime obviously makes the crime rate drop. It also lets police worry about more important problems, like drug traffick and murders and shit.

Other than that it is quite a peaceful country, so it was before decriminalisation, honestly the difference is not major. I would say from empirical observation that drug-related crimes have dropped, and also that hard drugs, particularly heroin, have had a pronounced drop in usage since decriminalisation. To what point decriminalisation and usage drop are related I am not so sure.

On the whole I find it to have been tremendously positive.

Volcaos said @ 11:38pm GMT on 14th Mar
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Portugal

Quote:

Portugal's security and peace indicators compare very favourably to other countries. According to the 2007-2008 Global Peace Index rankings, Portugal is the 7th most peaceful country in the world.

EPT said @ 1:08am GMT on 15th Mar
Don't forget to factor in economic boom times on crime rates - until very recently we've been in a boom. Expect crime to rise as the economy goes down the toilet. Assuming of course that Portugal is in the same boat most others are.

rehab said @ 11:07pm GMT on 14th Mar
There's already quite a lot of work out there on this, one of the best being the paper written by a colleague of mine:
The evaluation of the Portuguese drug policy 1999-2004: the process and the impact on the new policy by Moreira, M., et al.

Anyone interested in drugs policy should check out the Beckley Foundation who have some interesting documents.

It's also the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna now. I've read the draft declaration and don't get your hopes up.

donnie said @ 11:07pm GMT on 14th Mar
The Portuguese experiment is brilliant. If you give people freedom the world does not end. The world has never come to an end when people are given freedom. The world only comes to an end when you give people power. Then it all goes wrong.

-_- said @ 11:20pm GMT on 14th Mar
The world ended on October 13th 1987, but it had nothing to do with people having power or freedom.

strongicon said @ 11:50pm GMT on 14th Mar
Shut the fuck up, Donn...actually that's a good point.

donnie said @ 11:10pm GMT on 14th Mar
Oh, yeah, and who said nothing productive ever came out of drugs...

maryyugo said @ 11:55pm GMT on 14th Mar
a 10 day supply? depends on *who's* ten day supply.

"Arkansas Police seized nearly 500 lbs of marijuana on a tour bus returning from NBA All-Star Weekend in Phoenix, this week. According to the driver, the bus was allegedly escorting Fabolous to Boston to pick up "a rapper whose name he couldn't recall."

Though Fab was not on the bus at the time of the seizure, the two men who were arrested, Edward Thimas, 52, and Robert Morris, 44, claimed that Fabolous had loaded the marijuana into the locked compartment, as well as close to $6,500 in cash, which the police also confiscated.

Though both men agreed that the marijuana belonged to Fabolous, according to the police reports, their stories conflicted regarding the pickup of the drug shipment."

from here.

leno quipped that there was a second bus following them... with a thousand pounds of twinkies.

Volcaos said @ 12:00am GMT on 15th Mar
Daily supplies are set by law:

http://www.drugtext.org/count/portugal/psplmuk%20.html

You can have 5 grams of hash or 25 grams of weed or 1 gram of heroin.

-_- said @ 12:06am GMT on 15th Mar
Off the cuff I'd say that sounds fair.

-_- said @ 12:07am GMT on 15th Mar
heroin's a nasty drug though.
saw rather a few friends in the late 90's lose it to that stuff.

hildeaux said @ 12:43am GMT on 15th Mar
25 grams of weed in a day? Jesus fucking christ, no way!

I probably have to surrender my stoner card now.

Volcaos said @ 1:48am GMT on 15th Mar
Not in a day. that's the top you can carry, meaning 10 days. 2.5 a day.

hildeaux said @ 3:44am GMT on 15th Mar
Still, 2.5. Christ. I think I go through a gram in like a week and a half.

hildeaux said @ 12:44am GMT on 15th Mar
*whose

donnie said @ 2:37am GMT on 15th Mar
The stipulations of most acts of decriminalisation are among the stupidest things on earth. You're allowed to have and you're allowed to use, but you can't produce and you can't have more than enough to last ten days. So, wtf? Basically you can't have or you can't use, then, can you? Not without being forced to seek out criminals, at least. You could grow, but you can't well grow only ten days worth at a time, so it's all a bit illogcal, really.

Lord of the Barnyard said @ 3:45pm GMT on 15th Mar
I agree with this. Thought this was more where the conversation was going to go. We're (amurrica) in a bad way with the WOD.
Decriminalization for "drugs" seems to cut down drastically on, you know, money spent putting people in jail for doing them. Everyone is amazed and surprised the the decriminalized nations/cities/states didn't implode from the outset. The obvious parts of decriminalization, the less jail, less money, less fear came true and it looks like it will be a 5+ year effort to convince people of this little fact.

BUT it's not addressing the minor drugs, the pot, the e, the lsd. Who the fuck really cares in a societal sense if people are making/growing, selling and or using these?!?
Fine, decriminalize the hard shit, the heroin, the cocaine, the meth.
I, for one, want to start seeing LEGALIZATION for the stuff that's small potatoes.

hildeaux said @ 12:45am GMT on 15th Mar
Probably a stupid question, but if you're removing criminal penalties, then how is that not the same as legalization?

What happens if the cops find out you have drugs on you? Do they just say WE DISAPPROVE and give you a stern look?

hellboy said @ 1:47am GMT on 15th Mar
You pay a fine, same as a parking ticket, which is also illegal but not criminal.

Volcaos said @ 1:48am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:2]
They will confiscate the drugs and take you before a panel consisting of a magistrate, a social worker and a psychologist who will assess your level of dependance and give you advice. It's annoying but it won't be on your record.

plexer said @ 2:34am GMT on 15th Mar
Surely it will be on some record? Based on my thorough knowledge of the law (a.k.a CSI and Law and Order) parking fines seem to be searchable. It just won't show up as criminal - but that might not stop the Law Firm you REALLY want to work for dismissing your ass.

Volcaos said @ 2:45am GMT on 15th Mar
It goes on a confidential drug user directory for 5 years, not accessible to people outside law enforcement and it get expunged after the end of those 5 years.