The most notorious large-scale, well studied example of complete decriminalization, Portugal, shows the opposite to be true[0].

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...

That's not true. Usage increased[0,1].

- Reported lifetime use of "all illicit drugs" increased from 7.8% to 12%, lifetime use of cannabis increased from 7.6% to 11.7%, cocaine use more than doubled, from 0.9% to 1.9%, ecstasy nearly doubled from 0.7% to 1.3%, and heroin increased from 0.7% to 1.1%

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110725093536/http://www.idt.pt...

Does "lifetime use" mean "percentage of people who ever tried it"? If so, I can totally see that. When stuff is legal, more people are going to try it.

However, using it once or a few times is nowhere near being addicted. And all the other bullet points in your source [0] look pretty great:

- Increased uptake of treatment

- Reduction in new HIV diagnoses amongst drug users

- Reduction in drug related deaths

- Drug use among adolescents (13-15 yrs) and "problematic" users declined

- Decreased street value of most illicit drugs, some significantly

Lifetime usage is a different metric than "repeated usage", people can be more curious about it and try but not necessarily stick to using them. Even more when you have policies in place for education and harm reduction.

You're right[0] but it looks like it depends on age group[1,2].

[0] https://kek.gg/i/6vgYNF.png

[1] https://kek.gg/i/7-w6PD.png

[2] https://kek.gg/i/3Jn4G6.png

> people can be more curious about it and try but not necessarily stick to using them

Yeah, it's not like they are addictive or anything.

Addiction isn't binary. Serious addiction takes long periods of sustained use. Source: I have done a lot of drugs.

Addiction isn't that simple either. Some people become addicted rapidly, others not so much. I've known people that quickly fell down the rabbit hole, others that just quit one day and never looked back, and others who have replaced one addiction for another, sometimes for the better, other times for the worst.

'lifetime use' could have also increased due to people not being afraid to admit past use after decriminalization. Was there a control for that?

That only shows more people trying drugs out, it doesn't show a total drugs consumed amount (by weight/dosage or similar volume metrics) increase.

The percentage of the population using illegal drugs has stayed nearly constant since the war on drugs began. In times of lax enforcement and in times of heavy enforcement.

>But it will increase usage.

Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a way to get it anyway, it's not because you criminalize it that its usage drops. Just like IP infringement has not significantly dropped since they can put people in jail for it.

"Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a way to get it anyway,"

No, not true at all.

Supply and Demand.

The 'cost' of doing drugs in society right now is pretty dam high. Social stigma, the possibility of going to jail, various professional licences lost.

The 'free market price' of synthetic heroin and other drugs would be as cheap as sugar. Walk down to the local store and buy 1Kg of meth for $20. Jesus no.

People are really un-pragmatic about this issue.

I've had my exposure to it: a friend OD'd while in SF, another friend drug related suicide, and a third friend just fell in to a 'crack whole' for 20 years and now he lives full time in a clinic. Another - friend of a friend - has a 'weed' addiction (I know it's not common, but it exists) and he lives in a home as well.

These people were ruined long before they ever passed away or went into a home.

Selling crack or opioids in the corner store would instantly yield a massive public health crises.

'Legal' drugs - i.e. prescription drugs are already a major, major driver of the problem.

Here in Canada - doctors are not required to give out the 'absolute minimum' of opioids after operations etc. You don't get 'a bottle' with 'refills' - you get like 3 pills.

Why? Because there was a public healthcare crises developing even with legal substances.

That's how strict they need to be, because that's what's on the line.

If 'legal drugs' did not cause problems, then I suggest the massive amount of 'doctor shopping' and 'fake prescriptions' all over the US would not be resulting in serious problems, but they are.

It's just one of those things - some people can handle their drugs - most people can't and fall down the slippery slide.

Not saying that you are wrong, but I don't think you are right neither, it's a complicated issue.

Addicts will pay, so, the price it's not a big influence in they taking drugs. It's a big influence in what kind of life they have. There are cases of rich functional addicts.

Maybe, cheaper drugs would create more addicts, but we have the example of alcohol and weed in some places to examine. It's not so clear this is the case.

Legal drugs doesn't mean, necessarily, socially accepted drugs. I think that makes a big difference.

Legalising drugs != Making them cheap as chips on every high street. We can legalize drugs while applying significant barriers to entry such as high taxes, regulated distribution, user registration, medical oversight, etc and still suck the profits out of the illegal market. This has been done already and it works.

Criminalising everything to do with drugs has utterly failed. That's just a flat out fact, the huge damage done to your friends demonstrates this. The damage to society has been staggering, not just the effects of the drugs themselves but the criminalisation of huge swathes of the population.

It's time to try something different.

"and still suck the profits out of the illegal market. "

Not really.

If you create a big series of regulations and taxes around drugs - then there will still be a huge secondary, black market.

The 'war on drugs' will therefore continue - even as you 'legalize' drugs. Double whammy.

Take cigarettes - a much milder health concern:

"the total U.S. tobacco market represented by illicit sales has grown in recent years and is now between 8.5 percent and 21 percent." [1]

So now you have to 'fight a war on drugs' - and deal with the massive health-care crisis from the considerably more people who well get hooked on opioids, barbiturates etc..

[1] http://sites.nationalacademies.org/dbasse/claj/us_illicit_to...

>If you create a big series of regulations and taxes around drugs - then there will still be a huge secondary, black market.

The experience in places where this has been tried is that the supply in the black market reduces and prices significantly increase. So yes, the evidence is that legalization does a better job of restricting black market access than blanket criminalization.

Note that having a legal market doesn't suddenly mean the police stop busting drugs gangs. What it means is that drugs gangs not only have to face exactly the same law enforcement crackdown they already have, but also have to compete with legal, medically regulated access to drugs. It's a double-whammy for them.

I am also wary of the mass legalization of illicit drugs, mainly because of the already huge problem my states has with opiates. I think it's a good goal, but should I really believe that the "regulated" decriminalized drug market is going to be that much better than the already heavily regulated prescription drug market? Maybe once the US can get it together with it's painkiller problem I'd be more inclined to believe in total decriminalization. I would like to see how a system like Portugal's works with opiates in US before I'd hop on board for the whole shebang. However, it seems unlikely to happen since it's already hard enough to get tax payers to sport for Narcan let alone the drugs themselves.

Neither legalisation with regulation, or the current system of blanket criminalization is going to solve the problem of dangerous narcotics. These drugs bare here to stay. The failure of the war on drugs, which was supposed to solve the drugs problem, proves that.

So given that eliminating drugs completely has utterly and comprehensively failed, at huge financial and social cost, and given that legalization and regulation has proven to be effective time and time again, the question is which approach is best at managing the damage these drugs do and protecting individuals and society?

> If you create a big series of regulations and taxes around drugs - then there will still be a huge secondary, black market.

this point is under appreciated. i see new taxes and regulations spring up on legalized cannabis in California. and, just like with the high taxes on a pack of tobacco cigarettes, some of the market goes underground. (except, with cannabis, it hasn't had time to fully emerge from the underground in the first place!)

It's true that at the margin, increasing supply and making it easier to obtain drugs will lower the price, and cause some number of users to try drugs that didn't before.

Another feasible description of the world is that this marginal effect is very small, and almost everyone who wants to do drugs does already.

We don't need to speculate on how significant these factors are; we can look at places like Portugal that fully decriminalized drugs, and extrapolate from there.

> It's just one of those things - some people can handle their drugs - most people can't and fall down the slippery slide.

I sympathize with your point about losing friends to drugs; however I'd suggest that "most" isn't the right quantifier to describe the proportion of individuals that "fall down the slippery side". Some people are susceptible to mental health issues, and drugs can trigger episodes that might not otherwise happen. But the harms those individuals would experience from a general increase in prevalence of drug use are dwarfed by the harms that are currently inflicted on the drug users who do not abuse or otherwise have problems with drugs.

(And note that if we didn't spend as much money incarcerating drug users, we'd have a lot more money available for helping individuals with mental health/addiction problems.)

While would be nice to wave a wand and do away with all of the harms discussed here, the current drug policy proves that attempting to reduce drug usage through prohibition adds more harm elsewhere in the system than the harms that it attempts to prevent.

> The 'cost' of doing drugs in society right now is pretty dam high. Social stigma, the possibility of going to jail, various professional licences lost.

Is it? I've never heard of anyone who wanted to try drugs and was unable to get them. Maybe it's different in the US, but in Europe, you can always find a supplier.

I know that I could find a supplier of marijuana if I wanted. I'd just need to walk 100m down the street and ask the school kids hanging around in the park. Easy.

But I also know that I would be risking various legal and social consequences. A conviction for possession of drugs would affect my employment options, it would affect my travel options (visa forms often ask about such convictions), it may cause issues in the future if I ever got into a custody battle for my kids.

Given all of that, I have no plans to walk down the street and buy some weed from my friends' kids.

But I do have a collection of cigars in my house which I enjoy on occasion.

If it were possible to buy marijuana in the same way I can buy cigars, with the same legality, for a comparable price, then I might do so.

Now, I don't really see why society should care if I were to substitute some of my tobacco consumption with marijuana consumption, but there's a reasonable probability that this would be one of the outcomes if marijuana were totally legalised.

Cannabis is already completely legal in a number of US States. In Portland, Oregon there is practically an embarrassment of retailers. Further, one can buy a pen-sized vaporizer which contains concentrated cannabis resins in a variety of fruity flavors, and enjoy your habit pretty much anywhere in public. So far, I don't get the impression that legalization has affected the society here much. It doesn't really rise above the background levels of weirdness here, anyhow. I believe that most other instances of cannabis legalization have been similarly non-newsworthy.

And on the subject of drug availability, I'm aware of a few remote Alaskan towns where it's difficult to obtain drugs. I'm sure that there is some more developed and less isolated region of the world where it is also difficult to get such things, but that's probably not the common case. There is a global demand for such things, and there's only so much you can do to restrict the supply. Regardless, people will still find ways to get high. In the Alaskan towns I mention, bored teens will 'huff' paint fumes instead. There's not really a winning situation there; we can only minimize harm.

Yes, we should make people suffer, cause "Moral Panic" reasons.

I really hope you have to go through the tremendously painful surgery, and get those "3 pills".

Well, barriers to entry matter. If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a convenient store around the corner, you might purchase it more frequently than if you had to buy it from potentially dangerous people in a seedy part of town. That said, as with any bad habit I'm sure usage would still decrease over time for most individuals as they mature or if healthier alternatives are readily available.

Barrier to exit matters as well.

When you buy it from dangerous people, you have to be in contact with dangerous people. It gives dangerous people leverage against you and people who care about you.

There is no 'danger' from 'not buying stuff from your dealer' anymore.

I see you've never dealt with a dealer before.

I've known many a dealer in my lifetime, and a distant family member who spent some time incarcerated for 'high level' activity, who gives me long tales of how the business works as well.

Dealers don't assault, endanger or attack random customers who just stop buying.

That's totally absurd, and that someone would suggest it - indicates that they are getting their information from Netflix/Hollywood films or something, not reality.

The vast majority of dealers are actually fairly normal people anyhow.

Well exuse me, I didn't know i was talking to a renneissance man. Addicts wheel and deal with each other, rack up debts to eachother, steal from one another. Some of them buy wholesale from larger distributors, usually with credit, to be repaid with interest or else. They rob, assault, rape and kill eachother over this stuff. I wish i was making this up.

Doctors in emergency rooms usually have instructions to confiscate any illegal drugs they discover on OD-patients, but are faced with the very real dilemma of leaving the patient at their creditors mercy. This can cause real harm (as in "First do no harm") to the patient and their prospects of recovery or harm reduction.

If you don't pay your dealer, that will cause pain, and possibly violence.

But nobody is 'going after' someone who just decided to stop smoking something.

Maybe if that someone was just smoking pot and otherwise paid taxes. This particular group of drug users are not the central point of concern of the UN Special Assembly, even though its part of the wider problem. They are not dying in the streets and they are not socially marginalized. Allthough (anecdotally) i've known several fumb pot-smoking ducks who thought they could finance their proclivity through distribution and wound up several thousand dollars in debt to people who take names and chew bubble-gum.

I know this is an older article, but the Portuguese found that in practice, lifetime usage rates actually decreased following decriminalisation of most narcotics: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,0...

But also, people who have addictions wouldn't be considered criminals so they wouldn't be so reluctant to get help.

Being high is not illegal; Being in possession is

If you tell people they can't skip in a certain lane on the sidewalk they will skip in that certain lane. There will always be people who just want to cross the line because the lines existence makes them curious or "rebellious". It's like a psychological balance for some people. Being told "no" really makes some people want something.

The counter of this is why underage drinking is higher in the US than elsewhere. Society made it a taboo and that attracts people. In countries with lower age limits there's less underage drinking. The culture itself doesn't see it as such a big deal and there's no pent up against.

>If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a convenient store around the corner

Decriminalization means it's not illegal to possess, not that it's legal to sell. An important distinction in these sorts of discussions.

Shouldn't it, though? Otherwise you still have the crime and violence associated with drug use. It's certainly better than having possession also criminalized, but is it good enough? I'm not so sure.

I would suggest that maybe it's ok to continue to criminalize the sale of the more dangerous stuff, say of Schedule I drugs, but... well, marijuana is still on the Sched I list, so it's not like that list is particular scientifically rigorous.

> If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a convenient store around the corner

But it goes with greater awareness of the risks as well, and once it's in the public, you can expect a lot more discussion about its usage rather than a too simple "it's bad" attitude.

That can be anybody. Your old grandma, to this beautifull lady, or more common that guy in the corner, but not only "dangerous people" otherwise nobody will buy it.

The point being when you decriminalize it becomes accessible both to those who "really want" it and those who just would be curious to try it.

OK. Show your work. There are examples of decriminalization in different nations and regions. Where's the evidence?

Why does it matter if usage is increased?

There are often negative consequences for society when someone becomes a drug addict. There are the costs to society at the macro level. And, of course, there's the devastation suffered by families.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervention_(TV_series)

Two logical fallacies; First, "use" does not equate to addiction by any means. The vast majority of people who try "addictive" drugs do not proceed to addiction or even regular use. Second, the costs to society are predominantly those imposed by society. The violence of the drug trade, the lives ruined by a drug arrest or conviction, the families broken up by incarceration of young men are all self-inflicted by society. Just having to deal with the ravages of addiction would be a welcome relief from all those things.

Most negative consequences are caused by society and how the drug addict is treated, not by the drugs themselves.

When the United States criminalized alcohol, usage went up.

That doesn't seem to be the case per NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibiti...

Citation needed. First that seems incredibly hard to measure. Second I doubt many people tried that hard to measure. And third, access to alcohol during prohibition was never reduced by much. It just created a bunch of gangsters and violence.

It is hard to measure, but yes, people did try, both at the time and in more recent eras. To some degree the end of the first World War was a confounding factor, but the bulk of the sources I've seen support the parent's claims. The real effect of Prohibition was to change the quality of the alcohol consumed, for the worse (and even more unfortunately, one of the darker episodes of Prohibition involved the US Government deliberately poisoning alcohol). So, a quick search pulled up this[0] as a reference, but I'm sure that you can follow your interests to other results as you deem meet.

[0] http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults1.htm

What's better than reduction of mortality?