It should be obvious when reading a story about Portugal that they couldn't get the junkie to stay in rehab voluntarily, so obviously they don't mean "no potential of a criminal charge at all".
Whereas in Vancouver they specifically changed the rules so you can buy and do drugs in front of the police, pass out and almost die - get revived and smoke more drugs, and have no charges, no special detainment, nothing.
What I haven't found is a single short and simple article that explains for ... people like you, that what Vancouver/Seattle/Portland/SF and Portugal mean by decriminalization is not the same.
You have been told something exists, that's 95% of the way there. Now go to a search engine and type 'vancouver drug decriminalization' and 'Portugal drug treatment' and read about the issue.
You're trying so very hard to use me to justify your ignorance and to be insulting in the process.
> what would the criminal record be
Public intoxication, possession, etc.
> everything I saw previously was correct and they indeed decriminalized all drugs
They haven't decriminalized public usage. You can have your small amount of drugs if you do it in private and are discrete.
> This goes against the claims that you previously made that they did not have a decriminalization
It's a system of not giving you a criminal record by using the mere threat of the criminal justice system for force you to voluntarily enter rehab. So you have to do what they say but then they don't label you a criminal and they sort of pretend you went into treatment on your own.
In the words of the guy who invented and runs their system:
"There are a lot of myths around the Portuguese model that, for instance, we just liberalize you do whatever you want, nobody cares ... It's important to say that using drugs in Portugal is still prohibited under the law ... If somebody in Portugal starts injecting heroin in public [...] he would be arrested and conducted to the police station. The substances would be apprehended. If they have more than the amount that is calculated on the basis of personal use he undergoes criminal procedures as before. If he has less than that amount he would be intimated to present himself to the commission. It's not a court, it's not a formal institution, but he will be confronted to discuss his drug use with professionals. It's mandatory, with a little bit of muscle you have them in front of you. We can try to understand what is happening with this person. For each hundren people that is conducted through those commissions, ten of them are problematic users." -- João Goulão - National drug coordinator for Portugal - https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/16412220666858455...
This next part is where you have to read between the lines a bit. They don't come right out and say that they can't arrest junkies for junking in public - you have to understand that they wouldn't pass a bylaw to make it happen if they didn't need to which means that in the rest of the cities they would not arrest and move them proactively.
Here's a typical article about Vancouver BC's decriminalization - https://archive.is/f2Q0k
"Police forces across British Columbia are finalizing training on new drug laws that will limit or entirely cease their interactions with people who use drugs as the province becomes the first in Canada to decriminalize simple possession."
"While many police departments have in recent years moved away from arresting and recommending charges for possession alone, officers will now also stop confiscating illegal drugs"
"at least one city is preparing to introduce a new bylaw that would re-engage police if people use in certain public spaces."
From which we learn that 1) they won't be able to arrest at all for drug possession, 2) they won't even be able to confiscate dangerous drugs, 3) they won't even arrest people for public use (unless cities pass a bylaw overriding the province.)
In Portugal they will arrest, and will confiscate, and will use legal powers (if you push them to it) to detain you. In Vancouver they can not arrest, can not confiscate, and will not engage the criminal justice system at all.
Portugal is saving lives by using the courts, Vancouver is getting worse with every loosening. Seattle and SF are roughly the same as Vancouver.
Only now as of January 31, 2023 are police in Vancouver supposed to stop confiscating drugs. we're only 3 months into this new era.
Vancouver/BC didn't have decent recovery programs, and not enough capacity even in the bad programs, and critically - no legal capacity to force someone into them even if they did. People can be detained for up to 72hrs and "dried out" but that merely lets some of the detox pass, it's not at all related to kicking the drug and recovering from addiction. Even when they want to be clean the city usually houses them in a drug hotel where peer pressure drags them back in.
Arrest and seizure are valid tactics, Portugal proves it, despite Vancouver failing to apply them properly as part of a holistic program.
There's a published list [1] of illegal substances and what quantities constitute as "personal use" (like 25g of weed or 5g of hash - translated in "individual doses"). More than that you can be trialed for drug dealing, which is a fair trade-off.
Yes it's still illegal to possess any of these substances, but what happens is that if you're below the "criminal" threshold, you get a doctor/shrink appointment and usually pay a small fine (around 25 euros). Nothing gets written to your criminal record. Repeated offenders might have more several penalties like community service.
Recently there's been a surge in homelessness and harder drug consumption, analog to the rest of Europe, due to a huge housing crisis, very stagnant salaries and overall poor quality of life here (in Portugal).
[1]: https://dre.pt/dre/legislacao-consolidada/decreto-lei/1993-5...
Here, decriminalized is uncontrolled. You can buy your fentanyl in front of a cop and do it in public. Cops can't arrest you for it. There is a maximum amount but it's huge! Pot is still limited though, and you can be arrested for having more than an ounce but you can't be arrested for carrying enough fentanyl to kill an entire building of people.
This has been done so that there's no way to force people into rehab, so they're a continual source of income for the taxpayer funded "charities" that provide for them.
They use the criminal justice system and the underlying crime of public use and unsafe intoxication to force you into rehab, which is the very definition of criminalized.