but I haven't seen anything. The Drug Treatment Programs had to take budget cuts, but prior to that:
Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.
Peter Reuter, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, College Park said, "Drug decriminalization did reach its primary goal in Portugal," of reducing the health consequences of drug use, he says, "and did not lead to Lisbon becoming a drug tourist destination."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/portugal-drug-decriminalization/And fewer teens are trying drugs. Strangely, no one in an official capacity at U.S. Drug Agencies wanted to comment on the Portugal report... "because it makes people think legalization is okay." <--- This is the sort of paternalistic bullshit these agencies have adopted in order to keep their jobs, which exist to oppose any policy changes to drug laws. Why do we need a bureaucracy like that? If other options show they produce good outcomes, why must these be denied?
Here's a report on Portugal:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html
Anyway, is this some of the science Perry wants to look at, I wonder?
= new reply since forum marked as read
