Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Drugs Are Bad, Mkay?

Not in Portugal. In 2001 one the experiment began to see what would happen if instead of getting sent to jail, recreational drug users were put before a panel consisting of a psychologist, a social worker and a legal adviser; a team that would provide advice and treatment that could be refused at will. It sounds ridiculous to Western governments. I'm sure Frederic G. Cassidy (the founder of DARE) would be be preaching about the dangers of young teens doing coke off of the asses of hookers in the middle of downtown intersections, and geriatrics downing LSD during their daily visit to the grocery store. Of course, none of this happened, in fact, drug use went down, as the study by the Cato Institute showed. Tom Chivers (reporting the news from Time magazine, who actually wrote about this in 2009) goes through the statistics:

Drug use among 13- to 15-year-olds fell from 14.1 per cent in 2001 to 10.6 per cent in 2006. Among 16- to 18-year-olds it has dropped from 27.6 per cent to 21.6 per cent. This, incidentally, has come after years of steadily increasing drug use among the young; between 1995 and 2001, use in the 16-to-18 bracket leapt up from 14.1 per cent to its 2001 high. This drop has come against a background of increasing drug use across the rest of the EU.

Chivers notes that drugs are still deleterious, but this kind of decriminalization certainly doesn't seem to be.

Should other countries follow suit?

Full story here:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100047485/portugal-drug-decriminalisation-a-resounding-success-will-britain-respond-no/

15 comments:

  1. I like that a lot, I really don't see the problem with recreational use. You're not hurting anyone else and if you're careful it's not all that bad for yourself.

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  2. Agreeing with Uncle. That's a really interesting study.

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  3. I agree, this study is extremely interesting. I can't believe more people don't read your blog.

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  4. Often times you will see people go right back to drugs after they get out of jail. This can definatley turn their life around, but I dont think in the USA we have enough money to throw around to give them all of this treatment.

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  5. More is being spent on the drug program you have now.

    According to the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, it costs approximately $450,000 to put a single drug dealer in jail. This cost includes the costs of arrest, conviction, room, and board.

    Read more at Suite101: Financial Cost of the War on Drugs: Where Is the Money Going to Keep Drugs off the Street? http://www.suite101.com/content/financial-cost-of-the-war-on-drugs-a53068#ixzz10sh9sTlO

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  6. Wow, i never knew that. the drugs stuff is really interesting to me

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  7. this is one of my more favorite blog posts from you :)

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  8. I like that all of my ads are apparently about drug rehab following this post. Maybe I just didn't notice before.

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  9. Very good post man
    dmaynenet.blogpost.com

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  10. Jailing drug users doesn't address the root cause. Drug dealers on the other hand, should be prosecuted every time.

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  11. I just lit a blunt. Thanks for the good read :D

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  12. Feel like it would only work in a some places. US would never work for obvious reasons.

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  13. EVERYONE has this damned background. Change it.

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  14. Thank you for a breath of fresh air in the form of logical thinking. It's a rarer thing than one might thing nowadays.

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