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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths
#14552796 - 06/02/11 09:10 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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This should be a model for the rest of the world ...
Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths June 2, 2011 - independent.co.uk
When Portugal decriminalised drugs for personal use in 2001, many people worried that the sunny Southern European country would become a haven for drug tourists, replacing Amsterdam as the preferred destination for a holiday high. Some politicians in this conservative, Catholic country envisioned a hard drug supermarket, like Lisbon's infamous Canal Ventoso district, extending to the popular beach resorts in the Algarve. Others feared a surge in snorting and pill-popping among Portuguese youth.
"There will be plane-loads of students heading for Portugal to smoke marijuana and worse, knowing we won't put them in jail," warned the conservative opposition leader at the time, Paulo Portas.
But Portugal's socialist-led parliament voted to decriminalise the personal use of everything from cannabis to heroin, anyway. Until 2001, the small country had the highest rate of HIV infection from syringe sharing in the EU. By some estimates, as many as 100,000 heroin addicts roamed the streets in 2000, sometimes committing petty crimes for cash.
Portugal is the only member of the European Union with legislation explicitly stating that personal drug use is not a crime. But other countries, such as Spain, do not prosecute consumption or possession of small amounts of marijuana.
One result of Portugal's drug policies is that those plane-loads of drug tourists never came. And a study in 2009 by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Washington DC, found decriminalisation did not spark a surge in drug use, and, in many categories, such as marijuana, rates are among the lowest in Europe.
The number of heroin-related deaths was halved and the number of people in drug treatment programmes more than doubled, according to the study. Though more teenagers smoke marijuana, youth heroin use has dwindled.
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argg
Stranger


Registered: 07/20/09
Posts: 4,848
Loc: Nigeria
Last seen: 12 years, 7 months
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Re: Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths [Re: veggie]
#14553121 - 06/02/11 10:20 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
But Portugal's socialist-led parliament voted to decriminalise the personal use of everything from cannabis to heroin,
just want to point that out to zappaisgod since he thinks all leftist commies are harder on druggies then the moralist right wing nuts around the world.
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headiesmokeonly420
Stranger

Registered: 02/11/11
Posts: 62
Last seen: 9 years, 5 months
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Re: Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths [Re: argg]
#14553563 - 06/02/11 11:36 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Wow sensible legislation leads to lower drug use and deaths o man haven't we been arguing this point for years. Finally a country other than Amsterdam has passed sensible legislation to prove that decriminalization is beneficial!!!!! HOOORAYYY!!!!!
-------------------- EVERY SINGLE POST I MAKE IS PURELY FICTION AS THIS SCREEN NAME IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER IF HE WAS REAL HE WOULD BE A COMPLETELY LAW ABIDING CITIZEN ON THAT NOTE... SMOKE WEED EVERYDAY
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Konyap

Registered: 06/30/07
Posts: 33,945
Loc: Planet Piss
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths [Re: headiesmokeonly420]
#14553604 - 06/02/11 11:43 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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oo hoo well our dope game was through the roof in the seventies who ho hoo.
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dshow
Nomad



Registered: 01/22/09
Posts: 5,255
Last seen: 12 years, 2 months
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Re: Relaxed laws led to fall in Portuguese drug usage and deaths [Re: Konyap]
#14553713 - 06/03/11 12:13 AM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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Conservatives are for it being legal more then leftys in rational sense if they stuck by their guns. The end result if everyone went all the way on that side, left would be strict and right would be free. but thats not whats going on its quite the opposite. until the left keeps going and the right is finished. Then you will again see rights being taken away. its like waves. left,right,left,right
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