https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837 It's actually not drug use which has decreased all that much - it's actually "drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization."

This obviously has nothing to do with the crisis.

Except the article precisely says that the change cannot be attributed to this single policy:

> Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already happening in clinics, in pharmacies and around kitchen tables across the country.

Intellectual dishonesty seems to be on your side, this time.