Here in Norway there's a huge push towards medicalisation of drug users after the Portuguese model. While I think it's maybe a mild improvement over prison, fines and a criminal record, having experienced both first and second hand how addicts are treated in the medical and psychiatric systems, I'm struggling to be too thrilled about it.

We need a fundamentally new cultural paradigm in how we see drug use. Medicine will obviously play a part for those who truly need help, but not everyone does, and forcing help on those can actually turn them into addicts or otherwise hurt them.