23536
Bluelight Crew
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What most Americans don't realize is that drug laws are now changing around the world -- step by step and country by country. And a new report concludes that decriminalization of drug possession has not led to increase in drug use.
The report, published by Release, the U.K.'s "national centre of expertise on drugs and drug laws," reviews the evidence in 21 countries that have adopted some form of decriminalization and finds that the model of enforcement adopted has little impact on the rates of drug use in these countries -- but has a profound impact on the use of arrest and prisons for drug users. (In fact, the huge social and economic costs that accompany drug prohibition are a form of violence in themselves.)
The report, "A Quiet Revolution: Drug Decriminalization Policies in Practice across the Globe", finds that "countries and States as disparate as Belgium, Estonia, Australia, Mexico, Uruguay, the Netherlands and Portugal have adopted different models of decriminalization." Some countries (Spain and the Netherlands) have been moving towards decriminalization since the 1970s -- with the result that their drug use rates are lower than in the United States.
It's time for the United States to shake its obsession with drug prohibition and join the successful global movement that is reducing the problems that come not from the drugs per se, which are amenable to smart and well tested medical and social policies, but to bad drug policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-drucker/decriminalization-of-drug_b_1656045.html
What most Americans don't realize is that drug laws are now changing around the world -- step by step and country by country. And a new report concludes that decriminalization of drug possession has not led to increase in drug use.
The report, published by Release, the U.K.'s "national centre of expertise on drugs and drug laws," reviews the evidence in 21 countries that have adopted some form of decriminalization and finds that the model of enforcement adopted has little impact on the rates of drug use in these countries -- but has a profound impact on the use of arrest and prisons for drug users. (In fact, the huge social and economic costs that accompany drug prohibition are a form of violence in themselves.)
The report, "A Quiet Revolution: Drug Decriminalization Policies in Practice across the Globe", finds that "countries and States as disparate as Belgium, Estonia, Australia, Mexico, Uruguay, the Netherlands and Portugal have adopted different models of decriminalization." Some countries (Spain and the Netherlands) have been moving towards decriminalization since the 1970s -- with the result that their drug use rates are lower than in the United States.
It's time for the United States to shake its obsession with drug prohibition and join the successful global movement that is reducing the problems that come not from the drugs per se, which are amenable to smart and well tested medical and social policies, but to bad drug policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-drucker/decriminalization-of-drug_b_1656045.html
