The U.S. needs to decriminalize drug possession now
*Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon, Portugal
The top prosecutors in two Washington State counties — Snohomish and King — have announced that they will no longer file charges in drug possession cases involving less than 2-3 grams of any substance.
Even today, few elected officials are willing to introduce or support legislation to decriminalize drug possession. And while public support for modest versions of decriminalization now exceeds 50% in some polls, it’s not quite enough as yet for state ballot initiatives to play the pioneering role on this issue that they played with medical marijuana and marijuana legalization as well as reform of sentencing and asset forfeiture laws. (Hopefully one state will break through in 2020.) [However] The evidence from Portugal is conclusive. According to João Castel-Branco Goulão, director of Portugal’s drug program since its inception, “there was an average of one overdose death a day in Portugal before drugs were decriminalized, and there were 27 in all of 2016. In 1999, there were 1,793 new cases of HIV among drug users reported in Portugal. In 2016, there were 30. In 1999, 9,991 people sought treatment for drugs for the first time. In 2016, that number had dropped to 2,090. [And …] the total number of people in the country using any illicit drug has dropped from 100,000 to 40,000, and three-fourths of those are connected to treatment.”
Original Article (Rolling Stone):
The U.S. needs to decriminalize drug possession now
Artwork Fair Use: IPPAR
