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  • Back in the 1990s, Portugal faced a heroin crisis.

  • One in a hundred people were using the drug.

  • It took something drastic to turn things around.

  • Here’s how Portugal kicked the habit

  • While the Western World experienced the social and cultural revolution of the sixties

  • Portugal was kept isolated by the dictator Antonio Salazar.

  • In 1974, the Carnation Revolution overthrew his oppressive Estado Novo regime and the

  • Portuguese people were suddenly exposed to newfound freedoms.

  • Censorship was at an end, freedom of speech restored, elections promised and most important

  • of all, the end of portugal’s colonial wars in Africa

  • This was the catalyst that would lead to Portugal’s problem.

  • Attitudes towards drugs and experimentation were relaxed.

  • At the same time, the population grew, with up to a million people arriving from the colonies,

  • just as the country fell into a severe economic depression.

  • As if on cue, cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan flooded Europe.

  • While most countries had experience fighting drugs,

  • the new, liberal Portugal wasn’t prepared.

  • By the nineties an estimated one percent of the population was using heroin.

  • "It was almost impossible to find a single family in Portugal that had no problems connected

  • to drugs."

  • Doctor João Goulão formed part of a team of healthcare professionals to re-think how

  • Portugal dealt with drugs.

  • Feeling like they had nothing to lose, their solution was radical.

  • On July 1st 2001, Portugal became the first country in the world

  • to decriminalize all drugs.

  • What that means is while they remain illegal, possessing small amounts of anything from

  • cannabis to cocaine, or even heroin doesn’t result in arrest.

  • Users aren’t considered as criminals but rather treated as patients in a health-first

  • approach.

  • Instead of facing a judge, they meet a “dissuasion panelmade up of lawyers, social workers

  • and medics.

  • Before decriminalization around 90% of funds spent on fighting drugs went on enforcement

  • and just 10% on healthcare.

  • After 2001, that was reversed.

  • Critics claimed the change in law might encourage users and even attract drug tourists.

  • And there is some evidence that suggests small increases in reported drug use.

  • But advocates of decriminalization say that drug users are more likely to find help if

  • they know they won’t be locked up.

  • The number of Portuguese in rehab programmes rose from just over 6,000 in 1999 to

  • nearly 26,000 in 2008.

  • While those using heroin has fallen, from about 100,000 to around 50,000 today.

  • And drug-related deaths have fallen dramatically.

  • In 2015 Portugal had just six deaths per million people, the lowest in Western Europe and a

  • tiny fraction of that in the U.S..

  • The numbers show just how remarkable Portugal’s turnaround has been.

  • Due to its geography it serves as a gateway for trafficking into Europe, so stamping out

  • drugs just isn’t realistic.

  • Instead, it’s shown that a humane and health-led approach can be much less damaging to society.

Back in the 1990s, Portugal faced a heroin crisis.

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ポルトガルはいかにして麻薬戦争を終わらせたか (How Portugal Ended Its War on Drugs)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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