> Not everything scales well. Sometimes you just have to spend to fix.
I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? Those asks cannot coexist: if drug abuse is costing society billions or trillions of dollars in resources to fix, why do we allow it in the first place?
> The money is more important than people being rehabilitated?
I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. Eventually, they have to take responsibility for their own choices, especially if we have allowed that choice (if you think drug crime is victimless so shouldn't be punished is true).
> I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled?
> I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes.
It looks like you don't understand which part you don't actually get. While Portugal's program was being funded properly, the increase in drug usage was no different from nearby countries that did not change their drug laws. Teen marijuana usage was 1/3 what it was in the US at the time. But what about the cost? Well, it seems to have saved a boatload of money on enforcement.
“The most important direct effect was a reduction in the use of criminal justice resources targeted at vulnerable drug users,” says Alex Stevens, professor of criminal justice at the U.K.’s University of Kent, who co-authored the study. “Before, a large number of people were being arrested and punished for drug use alone. They saved themselves a lot of money and stopped inflicting so much harm on people through the criminal justice system. There were other trends since drugs were decriminalized in 2001, but they are less easy to attribute directly to decriminalization.”
The hippies over at Forbes seem to think that ending canabis prohibition will help the US recover economically from the pandemic like ending alcohol prohibition helped end the great depression.
But what about the collateral damage of all this rampant treating-instead-of-imprisoning-people-for-drug-use? Well, The International Journal of Drug Policy said:
"Taking into consideration health and non-health related costs, we find that that the social cost of drugs decreased by 12% in the five years following the NSFAD's approval and by a rather significant 18% in the eleven-year period following its approval. Whilst the reduction of legal system costs (possibly associated with the decriminalization of drug consumption) is clearly one of the main explanatory factors, it is not the only one. In particular, the rather significant reduction of health-related costs has also played an important role."
Surely the stalwart right-wing CATO institute will set the record straight on the fallout from such an irresponsible policy:
"While drug addiction, usage, and associated pathologies continue to skyrocket in many EU states, those problems—in virtually every relevant category—have been either contained or measurably improved within Portugal since 2001. In certain key demographic segments, drug usage has decreased in absolute terms in the decriminalization framework, even as usage across the EU continues to increase, including in those states that continue to take the hardest line in criminalizing drug possession and usage."
seanmcdirmid|2 years ago
I don't get how we can be pushed to decriminalize drugs and then be asked for tremendous resources to treat the drug abuse we enabled? Those asks cannot coexist: if drug abuse is costing society billions or trillions of dollars in resources to fix, why do we allow it in the first place?
> The money is more important than people being rehabilitated?
I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes. Eventually, they have to take responsibility for their own choices, especially if we have allowed that choice (if you think drug crime is victimless so shouldn't be punished is true).
chefandy|2 years ago
> I don't understand why we have to pay for other people's mistakes.
It looks like you don't understand which part you don't actually get. While Portugal's program was being funded properly, the increase in drug usage was no different from nearby countries that did not change their drug laws. Teen marijuana usage was 1/3 what it was in the US at the time. But what about the cost? Well, it seems to have saved a boatload of money on enforcement.
“The most important direct effect was a reduction in the use of criminal justice resources targeted at vulnerable drug users,” says Alex Stevens, professor of criminal justice at the U.K.’s University of Kent, who co-authored the study. “Before, a large number of people were being arrested and punished for drug use alone. They saved themselves a lot of money and stopped inflicting so much harm on people through the criminal justice system. There were other trends since drugs were decriminalized in 2001, but they are less easy to attribute directly to decriminalization.”
https://healthland.time.com/2010/11/23/portugals-drug-experi...
The hippies over at Forbes seem to think that ending canabis prohibition will help the US recover economically from the pandemic like ending alcohol prohibition helped end the great depression.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2020/05/26/cannabis-l...
But what about the collateral damage of all this rampant treating-instead-of-imprisoning-people-for-drug-use? Well, The International Journal of Drug Policy said:
"Taking into consideration health and non-health related costs, we find that that the social cost of drugs decreased by 12% in the five years following the NSFAD's approval and by a rather significant 18% in the eleven-year period following its approval. Whilst the reduction of legal system costs (possibly associated with the decriminalization of drug consumption) is clearly one of the main explanatory factors, it is not the only one. In particular, the rather significant reduction of health-related costs has also played an important role."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...
Surely the stalwart right-wing CATO institute will set the record straight on the fallout from such an irresponsible policy:
"While drug addiction, usage, and associated pathologies continue to skyrocket in many EU states, those problems—in virtually every relevant category—have been either contained or measurably improved within Portugal since 2001. In certain key demographic segments, drug usage has decreased in absolute terms in the decriminalization framework, even as usage across the EU continues to increase, including in those states that continue to take the hardest line in criminalizing drug possession and usage."
Yep, they did.
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald...