time.com— In 2001, Portugal officially abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, replacing punishment for therapy. Did it work?
Apr 26, 2009View in Crawl 4
The Shafer commission recommended a similar policy for marijuana 40 years ago. Nixon then proceeded to ignore it because the people who voted for him did not smoke it but they rather liked the idea of punishing those who did.
Even this isn't true legalization, and look at all the positive results they're getting from the change!If you ask me, true legalization is when we have it legal to use, regulated for quality and safety and documentation, sold along side alcohol with similar restrictions, age limits, and even taxes.Legalization solve many of the problems we currently have under Prohibition.But even just a true decriminalization, as Portugal has, seems to work just as well! So if your concern is that legalization is too "encouraging" of the activity of Marijuana use... Then fine, support decriminalization. So long as we END this counterproductive and harmful policy of Prohibition. It causes more problems than it solves, makes things worse, harms the users more, and prevents us from actually fixing things for the better! END PROHIBITION!Sadly, I've seen some negative statistics on Amsterdam's style of "decriminalization", but that is likely because what they have is not true decriminalization... They simply don't enforce the laws against it, and look the other way... Which isn't really solving the problems.Plus Amsterdam IS in itself, a big tourist location... Which means "drug tourists" are sort of a given there.For the rest of the world, under decriminalization/legalization, drug tourists are not a problem, and this is more true the more other countries decide to decriminalize Marijuana as well.
Something I've always wondered though, how will this affect employment processes?Can you really not allow someone to work for you because they do a totally legal substance?But I guess this situation relates to alcohol, but telling if someone is messed on something else might be more difficult.
This article does a great job of delivering real-world "information" on a tenacious subject that isn't going to resolve itself. I feel safe in saying that law enforcement didn't dissuade anyone I knew from trying drugs, or from building an entire lifestyle around them. Even the people I knew who got caught all went back to getting high. While, many years later, I can see parts of my life that might have been better off without drugs, it's clear that getting busted would have sent me down the wrong rabbit hole.www.twitter.com@dlevinethinks
impeiApr 26, 2009
The Shafer commission recommended a similar policy for marijuana 40 years ago. Nixon then proceeded to ignore it because the people who voted for him did not smoke it but they rather liked the idea of punishing those who did.
nikokunApr 26, 2009
Even this isn't true legalization, and look at all the positive results they're getting from the change!If you ask me, true legalization is when we have it legal to use, regulated for quality and safety and documentation, sold along side alcohol with similar restrictions, age limits, and even taxes.Legalization solve many of the problems we currently have under Prohibition.But even just a true decriminalization, as Portugal has, seems to work just as well! So if your concern is that legalization is too "encouraging" of the activity of Marijuana use... Then fine, support decriminalization. So long as we END this counterproductive and harmful policy of Prohibition. It causes more problems than it solves, makes things worse, harms the users more, and prevents us from actually fixing things for the better! END PROHIBITION!Sadly, I've seen some negative statistics on Amsterdam's style of "decriminalization", but that is likely because what they have is not true decriminalization... They simply don't enforce the laws against it, and look the other way... Which isn't really solving the problems.Plus Amsterdam IS in itself, a big tourist location... Which means "drug tourists" are sort of a given there.For the rest of the world, under decriminalization/legalization, drug tourists are not a problem, and this is more true the more other countries decide to decriminalize Marijuana as well.
deadskinmaskApr 27, 2009
I will digg your story because it was submitted first.The other one got buried as a dupe.
velvolverMay 8, 2009
Something I've always wondered though, how will this affect employment processes?Can you really not allow someone to work for you because they do a totally legal substance?But I guess this situation relates to alcohol, but telling if someone is messed on something else might be more difficult.
davex44May 13, 2009
This article does a great job of delivering real-world "information" on a tenacious subject that isn't going to resolve itself. I feel safe in saying that law enforcement didn't dissuade anyone I knew from trying drugs, or from building an entire lifestyle around them. Even the people I knew who got caught all went back to getting high. While, many years later, I can see parts of my life that might have been better off without drugs, it's clear that getting busted would have sent me down the wrong rabbit hole.www.twitter.com@dlevinethinks
mouseshoesMay 14, 2009
Won't happen and should never happen in America. Get used to it.