Costa Rica’s Chinchilla Calls for Drug Legalization Debate

let’s see what her handlers (the US) have to say about this. i heard napolitano said no way to decriminalization in the States. too big a business locking up all the drug addicts in for-profit NYSE-traded prisons.

[quote=”Scott”]”It may seem like semantics, but Portugal’s experiment in decriminalizing drugs (not legalizing them) has had some pretty impressive results. ”

The results are impressive: A drop in HIV rates, a drop in street overdoses and a drop in overall drug abuse (except marijuana). People don’t flock to Portugal from across Europe to abuse drugs. “The apocalypse never came,”

What do you think?

Scott

[/quote]

Legalization and taxation of Marijuana would benefit the States and domestic production would take over much of the market.

Decriminalizing cocain, heroin and other ‘hard drugs’ will not stop the murders which are wars over market share. Whether the drugs are decriminalized or not will make little difference.

The biggest problem is that too many politicians have their pockets filled by the cartels negating any real solution.

Hmmm . . . Seems to me that (currently illegal) substance abuse and prostitution have some things in common and some differences.

In too many instances, prostitution is forced upon the prostitutes either by their life circumstances or by predatory pimps. Certainly the child prostitutes of Thailand and elsewhere have not chosen that life among any range of practical options. Likewise, unwanted and homeless children turn to prostitution to survive. It’s their one practical option and likely not one they relish.

Similarly, substance abusers are often lured into their abuse by someone with something to gain, or by a social environment that encourages that abuse. I can think of several childhood friends who grew up to be alcohol abusers merely because that was the family environment in which they grew up. Their heavy use was pretty much a foregone conclusion although admittedly they were/are people of free will who do have choices.

The difference between prostitution and substance abuse, in my opinion, is that as one who has never been a client, prostitution has only a very limited impact on me personally. My exposure is virtually zero. True, I pay taxes to help treat the HIV and other STDs that run rampant among prostitutes, but those same taxes pay for the effects of smoking, inactivity, poor diet, substance abuse, and a host of other “bad social behaviors”.

The difference, to me personally, is that I cannot effectively avoid exposure to the substance abusers, and I cannot see how decriminalizing drug abuse will help. Every time I leave the house, I’m at risk of being hit by some drunk or doper driving unsafely. I’m at risk of some physician mistreating me. I’m at risk for someone handling my food doing so unsafely. The list goes on . . .

For as long as we all are so dependent upon so many people to serve our legitimate needs and for as long as we’re exposed to the public generally, we’re at risk of our health and safety being jeopardized.

Legal and law enforcement campaigns have had some success in suppressing drunk driving, but I just wonder how many impaired drivers we’ll encounter if marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, peyote and heroin are legally available. Absent a convincing answer to that question, I cannot come down in favor of decriminalizing the abuse of any controlled substance.

The remaining questions are whether what we’re doing now is having enough beneficial effect to warrant the financial and social costs. Is the juice worth the squeeze? And is there a practical alternative? If not the current “war on drugs”, now in its fourth decade, what?

You’re absolutely right, maravilla, that we’re constantly exposed to drivers and others whose performance is influenced by a wide variety of legal and illegal substances. So maybe decriminalizing drugs wouldn’t change that exposure at all.

Does anybody know what Portugal’s experience with decriminalization has been? Apparently measurable drug use hasn’t skyrocketed, but what effects have been seen in policing, the courts, prison populations, etc?
Has the reported incidence of impaired driving gone up or down?

And has Portugal seen any reduction in the activities of organized criminals? If the incidence of substance abuse weren’t affected at all but the activities of organized crime were suppressed, that would be a convincing argument in favor of decriminalization by itself.

A public health problem,drug addiction,can not be fixed by the war on drugs. Unfortunately people who have never had a drug problem WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND ADDICTION. I am 10+ years clean and sober and have never met a non addict who understands addiction. Their answer is always ,Just quit! As long as you fit your narrow preception of who and what drug abusers are you will never really understand the real problem. I never was or met a prostitute so I really don’t have an opinion on that issue.
Just saying

I hope there are no repercussions from this. The predator class (banking cartel-US government)has a few ways of getting its way…and it wants to keep the so called war on drugs as one of its a control mechanisms and money-making schemes.

Either an economic hit team comes down and buys off or scares off Chinchilla or another kind of hit team comes down. What I can’t figure out, though, is why Chinchilla is doing this. She must be aware of the game rules. Unless she is totally naive, there may be a hidden agenda.

The real ISSUE is that prostitution has existed since the begining of the world and drug’s ALSO.

While one is accepted up to a certain degree the other is not, some things never change but they do exist all over your town, city, state and country.

After 30 years of a WAR on drugs and spending billions of dollars, have we made a dent on it??

My answer is to DEAL with this problem, containment has not worked and will not work