The United States government has been in an ongoing fight against the use of illegal drugs since the Nixon presidency, and it shows no sign of stopping any time soon. Meanwhile, another country has taken a radical approach to how they regard recreational drugs with surprising results.
In 2001, Portugal essentially legalized the usage of all drugs. Although the very idea would send a large population of Americans into fits of indignant rage, the law–or lack thereof– has yielded surprising results since its implementation.
The country of Portugal was able to report only 3 deaths per 1,000,000 citizens due to a drug overdose in 2015. When compared to the rest of the European Union– 17.3 deaths per million— it’s clear that the implementation of this policy produced drastic results in less than 20 years.
The statistics get even more severe when the United States comes in. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, The U.S. reported 14.7 deaths per 100,000 due to overdose in 2014. If these numbers were extrapolated, that would mean 147 deaths per million in the United States alone.
When compared to Portugal’s 3 deaths per million, it’s clear exactly how effective America’s so-called “war on drugs” has been.
If Portugal’s alternative approach were adopted by the United States, the effects would reach far beyond those who suffer from fatal overdoses. The illegal drug trade would be undermined overnight, which in turn would slash the numbers for human trafficking and gang activity.
The United States’ current policy on drugs also allows for the emergence of synthetic drugs– substances with man made components and wildly varying side effects. Synthetic marijuana alone was responsible for 120 overdoses in Texas in 2014.
The connection between synthetic drugs and Portugal’s drug policy is simple: if people can get their hands on the real thing, then they won’t be tempted to seek out more dangerous alternatives. These man-made substitutes can cause irreversible damage, just like what happened with this teen after her extensive use of synthetic marijuana.
The statistics and testimonies alone are enough to prove many truths in the debate about drugs that cannot be contested: America’s current approach to illegal drugs is simply not working. Other countries have drastically different approaches that are. It’s time to start taking these ideas into consideration in order to create something that would actually accomplish the task that America set out to do decades ago.
