Legalize Marijuana

Davewerty, you are totally misrepresenting the facts in the Forbes article "Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal" , written by Erik Kain " a pot stoner, video game addict or video game stoner, who loves stoner food "e.g., jaoapeno and French fried onions on hotdog). "Had the best hotdog of my life tonight. Had jalape"o and French fried onions on it, delicious but absolutely stoner food."https://twitter.com...Wow! That is righteous stoner talk, dude!Citing a Forbes" article written by a known stoner, an article about the estimated decrease in heroin addiction in Portugal, where possession of any illegal drugs, including cannabis, is still illegal, doesn't prove anything. http://www.forbes.com...Since this is not an ad hominem attack against Erik Kain as such, I will get back to his overstatement of the facts in his Portugal article in Forbes.What is the actual drug policy in Portugal?"Drug Policy of Portugal" - "In July 2001 a new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. The offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an administrative one if the amount possessed was no more than ten days' supply of that substance.... Even if there are no criminal penalties, these changes did not legalize drug use in Portugal. Possession has remained prohibited by Portuguese law, and criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers."http://en.wikipedia.org...In the ten years after article written by Erik Kain, he takes a statement out of context by one Portuguese medical doctor, Dr. Goulao, who estimates that the population of problematic hard core intravenous drugs users, which he estimated were around 100,000 in the early 1990s, has decreased by one-half. But, here is the problem, Dr. Goulao"s estimates about a 50% decrease in hard core drug used are not correct. First off, he has no real numbers on the total number of drug addicts in Portugal in the early 1990s. The Doctor is protecting the programs he has a vested interest in proving are successful. You can read his report and look at the charts. http://www.rusfeltet.no...Dr. Goulao's bar chart "Drug Consumption Prevalences (any drug) "Portugal 2001/2007 General Population (15-64 years) " Lifetime Prevalence (Any Illicit Drug) shows increases in every age bracket comparing 2001 to 2007. One bar graph shows the 15-24 as increasing by about 5% between 2001 and 2007. He does another bar graph were he breaks the 15-24 group into three subgroups where the 15-19 group decreases by about 2%, but the 20-24 age group increases by about 8.2%. Then he has another bar graph "Outpatients Clients in the Public Network" where total clients from 2003 to 2009 has increased from 29,596 to 38,875. At the end of this study he has a section called "Trends since 2001" and lists a number of bullet points, most of which say what a great success the program has been; but, three bullet points stuck out for me as very strange and funny: " Small increases in reported illicit drug use amongst adults."" Increases in the amounts of drugs seized by the authorities."" Reductions in the retail prices of drugs"So according to Dr. Goulao since 2001 to 2009, more adults are getting stoned, more illegal drugs are being seized, and it is now cheaper to get stoned in Portugal. And, if the drug decriminalization program is working, why any increases at all? And, why are more drugs being seized? More drugs being seized means that more illegal drugs are being made available and used; so their famous program just does not work.http://www.rusfeltet.no...And, before you forget this, Dr. Goulao believes all illegal drug use (including pot) is a problem and people who use drugs need help and that is why they have their intervention programs.You can send him an email and ask him, if you don"t believe me. His email address is at the end of his report.Joao.goulao at idt.min-saude.ptNow, here is another article about the real facts since the Decriminalization of drugs in Portugal. "Decriminalization of drugs in Portugal " The real facts!""Portugal faces a worrying deterioration of the drug situation. The facts prove "With 219 deaths from "overdose" per year, Portugal has one of the worst results, with one death every two days. Along with Greece, Austria and Finland, Portugal registered an increase of deaths by more than 30% in 2005 " and " Portugal remains the country with the highest increase of AIDS as a result of injecting drugs (85 new cases per million residents in 2005, when the majority of countries do not surpass 5 cases per million).!""The decriminalization of drugs in Portugal did not in any way decrease levels of consumption. On the contrary, "the consumption of drugs in Portugal increased by 4.2% " the percentage of people who have experimented with drugs at least once in their lifetime increased from 7.8% in 2001 to 12% in 2007 (IDT-Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction Portuguese, 2008).""With regard to the consumption of cocaine "the latest data (surveys from 2005-2007) confirms the increasing trend during the last year in France, Ireland, Spain, The United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark and Portugal" (EMCDDA 2008). While rates of use of cocaine and amphetamine doubled in Portugal, seizures of cocaine have increased sevenfold between 2001 and 2006, the sixth highest in the world (WDR-World Drug Report, 2009).""With regard to hashish, it is difficult to assess the trends and intensive use of hashish in Europe, but among the countries that participated in field trials, between 2004 and 2007 (France, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and Portugal) there was an average increase of approximately 20% " (EMCDDA, 2008).""In Portugal, since decriminalization has been implemented, the number of homicides related to drugs has increased 40%. "It was the only European country with a significant increase in (drug-related) murders between 2001 and 2006″ (WDR, 2009).""A recent report commissioned by IDT, the Center for Studies and Opinion Polls (CESOP) of the Portuguese Catholic University, based on direct interviews regarding the attitudes of the Portuguese towards drug addiction (which has strangely never been released), revealed the following: 83.7% of respondents indicated that the number of drug users in Portugal has increased in the last four years. 66.8% believe that the accessibility of drugs in their neighborhoods was easy or very easy and 77.3% stated that crime related to drugs has also increased ("Toxicodepend"ncias" No. 3, 2007)." Do you think that Erik Kain just forgot to mention the above facts about the failed decriminalization programs in Portugal? Or, is he just another liar, a duplicitous stoner. I have much more proof to support my position, but due to the limited response space, it will have to wait till my next post.