> The offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison as a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than a ten-day supply of that substance.
Indeed this is the difference between decentralization and legalization.
They did a lot of things yes! Very true. I advocate for the whole model.
Are you sure? Litmus test ;) Are you for de-legalization of marijuana?
PS. I always assumed that decriminalization and legalization are synonyms because it never crossed my mind that possessing a tiny quantity of a substance, even illegal, can lead to jail. I'm all for decriminalization of 'personal use' quantities of any given drug.
No, I think any drugs that have been measured and studied to be less harmful than alcohol should be completely legal. And so that is, checks notes all of big ones. [1]
I see decriminalization as a minimum. I do also think a legalization or decriminalization strategy should take into account the harms associated with these substances and offer programs to mitigate social and individual harms.
Appreciate the honesty :) Consider that those with a more conservative position are highly suspicious of underspecified language ('decriminalization', without explicit scope modifiers), which only seem to serve to open the floodgates, and then in a few short years we end up with schools pushing heroin to kids behind their parent backs. All in the name of 'harm reduction' and 'undoing stigma'.
Yep, that's definitely true. In my opinion, for most drug addictions, it is in fact a symptom of a situation than the problem itself. For some people with certain biologies, I suppose that may not be entirely accurate. However one of my favorite studies compares the experiences of GIs before the war, in Vietnam, and when they got back.
Table 1 shows that before the war, 11% of the group surveyed used narcotics. In Vietnam it spiked to 43%. When they got back? 10%. [1]
For most of them, it was heroin. They literally cold turkey quit heroin when they got back from Nam.
What all this tells me is that telling addicts they can’t have drugs and sending them to prison won’t stop them from doing drugs. What will is making them not want to do drugs by changing their situation.
The Vietnam story is definitely an interesting datapoint. They went to Vietnam, had easy access to heroin (it was a war zone, certain civilian rules no longer applied) and fell to the vice. Not sure why you discount the possibility that the primary motivations of cold turkey quitting heroin were the elimination of easy access to heroin and the stigma of living the rest of their lives as heroin addicts.
Prison for drug use is cruel punishment, but therapy & community service (hello Portugal) are entirely reasonable (and effective!) approaches to the problem.
Indeed this is the difference between decentralization and legalization.
They did a lot of things yes! Very true. I advocate for the whole model.