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A comment on The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 to YesOn19. Parent comment

Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by kqr2 on Friday October 29, 2010 @06:25PM (#1849302)
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized drugs. Data since then seems to indicate that the policy was successful.

rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.ht...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/03/14...

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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by VladRussian on Friday October 29, 2010 @08:28PM (#1849645)
>and money saved on enforcement

For the police union it is "lost" money, not "saved".

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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by zachrose on Saturday October 30, 2010 @04:04AM (#1850415)
"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -- Clay Shirky (aka The Wire Principal)

Although not always, it seems. Wikipedia lists a fair about of support from police unions. (And longshoremen, FWIW.)

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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by pmjordan on Saturday October 30, 2010 @05:08AM (#1850487)
Considering most police forces in Europe complain about too much work and lack of resources, I doubt that. No idea what the situation is like in the US.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by slowpoison on Friday October 29, 2010 @07:15PM (#1849444)
Anybody comment on what the situation is in Amsterdam, where pot is legal, at least, in small quantities?
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by ugh on Friday October 29, 2010 @07:26PM (#1849478)
… as I understand it there are two main problems with the status quo. One is that under the old tolerance regime there’s still no way for a coffee shop to legally obtain the supply of marijuana you need to operate on the scale of a business. Consequently, de facto legalization hasn’t actually eliminated the black market and associated criminality. Secondarily, the main market for the coffee shops turns out to be drug tourists from abroad. That reduces the Dutch political constituency for keeping them open. And the two factors interact together to create a situation where there’s a strong case to be made that legal coffee shops (by bringing drug tourists from the UK and the US into shops that need to tap an illegal wholesale market to gain their supplies) increase the scale of organized crime in the Netherlands.

– http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/coffee-shop-crackd...

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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by mambodog on Friday October 29, 2010 @10:31PM (#1849896)
So really, legalisation would work a lot better if all countries did it (eliminating drug tourism).
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by anthonyb on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:38AM (#1850115)
No, you just need to avoid doing it in a half-hearted manner. In the case of Holland, why shouldn't there be drug tourism? Why is it any worse than, say, coffee tourism? or wine and food tourism?
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by mturmon on Saturday October 30, 2010 @01:10AM (#1850157)
Because the people drawn to drug tourism are more irresponsible, shallow, and opportunistic than your average tourist. Not always, sometimes not outrageously so, but in general. If you've been to Amsterdam, you might have noticed this, as I did.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by kablamo on Saturday October 30, 2010 @03:04AM (#1850331)
I was surprised Amsterdam seemed to maintain a clean, moderate, respectable attitude during daylight hours. I noticed the city is an insanely wealthy and beautiful place. I would guess they are making a ton of money off tourists.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by anthonyb on Saturday October 30, 2010 @02:49AM (#1850301)
So? Lots of people are irresponsible, shallow and opportunistic. I've seen Americans complaining loudly about prices and the lack of English while touring Italy, but nobody seems to want to ban the Duomo.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by Confusion on Sunday October 31, 2010 @09:52AM (#1853233) 

  the main market for the coffee shops turns out to be drug
  tourists from abroad
That's not true. Although a number of coffee shops in Amsterdam and in cities close to the borders with Germany and Belgium primarily sell to tourists, there are many more coffeeshops that just sell to the local users.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by frossie on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:24AM (#1850091)
Anybody comment on what the situation is in Amsterdam

Just a note of caution - while looking at what other places do definitely brings information to the table, you can't always say "if place A does X, doing X in place B will make it like place A".

The classic example of this is alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are not prohibited, but if you walk through an Italian town center at 11pm on a Friday night you won't see the scenes of public drunkeness and alcohol-fueled disorder that you see, say, in an English town center at the same time.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the larger point, in these kinds of policy area there is a level of unpredictability as to what will happen when a previously controlled substance is legalised, because patterns of consumption are convolved with local social norms.

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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by Hovertruck on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:31AM (#1850103)
AFAIK, pot isn't actually legal, it's just decriminalized, and not very strictly enforced.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by jozo on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:30AM (#1850100)
The situation in the US now and in Portugal then is very different. Everything from the culture and structure of society, to the motivations behind the reform and the actual reform itself are different. The decision by the socialist government in Portugal was based on pragmatism, born out necessity, rather then ideology. The idea was that, instead of further victimizing the addicts, they would be able to get help. As the law no longer would stand between those in need and the resources of the government. That's why it still isn't legal to sell drugs in Portugal and why you as an addict can be called to mandatory counseling. I'm not saying on reform or the other is better, but they are still very different.
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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by shin_lao on Saturday October 30, 2010 @03:48AM (#1850394)
Decriminalization is not legalization.
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