Laigle’s Forum

Decriminalization of drugs in Portugal

by Manuel Pinto Coelho 

I have seen the national, and particularly the foreign, press trumpet with strange insistence, on the eve of electoral processes in Portugal, the “resounding success” of the decriminalization of drugs initiated in 2001 by the Socialist government, — ignored by all other European countries and to the detriment of the guidelines and conventions of the United Nations to which the country is a signatory.

Respect for the true facts obliges the Association for a Drug-Free Portugal (APLD) to inform the Portuguese of the true consequences of implementing the current policy, independently of party affiliations. Portugal adopted a rather original and undoubtedly questionable solution (?) for managing the scourge of drugs.

The recent articles of the British weekly The Economist and of the Cato Institute in Washington promoted the governmental options. It is a legitimate, perhaps politically correct right. The problem is the rest: the vexing manipulation of the facts and the figures is unacceptable.

1 – [reportedly] In Portugal in 2006, the total number of deaths from overdose did not increase radically relative to 2000 and the percentage of drug addicts with AIDS decreased (from 57% to 43%). Exactly the opposite happened. We are witnessing a worrisome deterioration of the situation. The facts demonstrate this: “with 219 deaths by overdose per year, Portugal has one of the worst outcomes, with one death every two days. Like Greece, Austria and Finland, it is one of the countries registering an increase of more than 30% in 2005,” and “Portugal continues to be a country with the highest incidence of AIDS related to the consumption of injected drugs (85 new cases per million inhabitants in 2005, when the majority do not exceed five cases) and the only one that registered a recent increase, with 36 new cases estimated per million inhabitants in 2005, when in 2004 there were only 30″ (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction–EMCDDA, 2007). Further, according to the European report, Portugal registered 703 new cases of infection in 2006, corresponding to a rate eight times higher than the European average!

2 — The decriminalization of drugs in Portugal in no way reduced the levels of consumption, on the contrary. In reality, “consumption in Portugal increased 4.2% — the percentage of persons who took drugs at any time in their life rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12% in 2007 (IDT – Instituto de Droga e da Toxicodependencia / Institute of Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2008).

3 – As for cocaine use, “the new data (found for 2005-2007) confirm the growing tendency registered last year in France, Ireland, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark and Portugal” (EMCDDA, 2008). As for the rate of cocaine and amphetamine use, these doubled in Portugal; the confiscations of the latter drug increased seven times between 2001 and 2006, the sixth highest in the world (WDR — World Drug Report, 2009).

4 — with regard to hashish: — “it is difficult to evaluate the intensive consumption trends for cannabis in Europe, but among the countries that participated in both studies in the field, between 2004 and 2007 (France, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal), there was a mean increase of about 20%” (EMCDDA, 2008).

5 — in Portugal, since decriminalization was implemented, the number of drug-related homicides increased 40%. “It was the only country in Europe to show a significant increase in homicides between 2001 and 2006 (WDR, 2009).

6 — a recent study sponsored by the IDT to the Centre for Opinion Research and Surveys (CESOP) of the Catholic University of Portugal, based on direct interviews on the attitudes of Portuguese relating to drug addiction (which strangely, was never published), reveals that 83.7% of the respondents consider that the number drug addicts in Portugal increased over the last four years, 66.8% consider that accessibility of drugs in their neighborhoods was easy or very easy, and 77.3% said that drug-related crime had increased (“Toxicodependencias” No. 3, 2007).

This is the pungent Portuguese reality with relation to drugs and drug addiction.

For the Portuguese government, drug addicts are seen essentially as sick people. It is an inexpensive and suicidal attitude for the public treasury. They pretend to be sick and the government pretends to treat them!

Decriminalization of use, possession and acquisition for use means penalization only when another crime is added to the charge of consumption, which almost always has a mitigating effect. Legalizing the crime committed by “drugged” persons (or by “sick people” – sic) does not seem to be the most efficient way to combat crime, as witnessed by the exceptional rate of drug-related homicides compared to other European countries. Facilitating access to the drug will not be the way to reduce consumption or reduce drug addiction and associated criminality.

It is really curious what is happening in Portugal: drug addicts, with the tacit support of the government, invoke their status as “sick people” in order not to be punished for their crimes but then forget that they are “sick” and pose as free responsible persons who decide whether or not to be treated!

To deem the drug addict a sick person and not a criminal, by the route of decriminalization, the state cannot opt to feed the “sickness” instead of curing it, through a policy that prioritizes “harm reduction”!

Resounding success? The results are right in front of your nose!

 Translated by Don Hank

Manuel Pinto Colho, President of the APLD (Association for a Drug-Free Portugal)

Original Portuguese language article:

http://www.joaodefreitas.com.br/descriminalizacao-das-drogas-portugal.htm

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