Guest Blogger: Pamela Webb
Pam is the mother of six, a childbirth educator and currently in Nursing School at the University of Providence.
In class with Professor Granger, she brought our attention to a YouTube video that addressed the issue of addiction in a way that I had not heard before. In it, the gentleman refers to the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal and the way he described it was intriguing to me. The idea of taking the marginalized, underserved, and otherwise ignored populations and actively bringing about the reintegration and opportunity for productivity and purpose, really appeals to me.
Caring for others appeals to me. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1956) said, “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.” In this address he was speaking of breaking down racial barriers, but I think that there is a prejudice that exists on our society today against those that have fallen victim to drug addiction/abuse.
We see it in our justice system with 46.4 % of federal prison inmates incarcerated for drug charges (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021). This is more than twice the percentage for the next largest category of offenses (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2021). We see it in our homeless population with 68 % of cities reporting that issues with substance abuse were the largest cause of homelessness in single adults and this percentage does not even look at family or youth homelessness (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2016). The percentages for adults in the sexual minority is also higher than the overall adult population (National Institute on Drug Abuse, n.d.). The complex nature of drug addiction is a perfect example in research of the saying, “correlation is not causation” but it is illustrative of the populations hard hit by this nationwide problem.
The Model of Portugal
After the liberation of Portugal in 1974 from authoritarian rule, Portugal started to have a major problem with the trafficking of heroin and other illicit drugs. Fast forward ten years and Portugal had a huge heroin epidemic on their hands with 1 in 10 adults reporting heroin addiction and one of the highest rates of HIV infection per capita in all of the European countries. In 1999, The Portuguese National Strategy for the Fight Against Drugs was founded and issued the first federal mandate that spurred changes in the social climate around drug addiction moving forward (Ren, 2019).
Portugal’s policy rests on three pillars: one, that there’s no such thing as a soft or hard drug, only healthy and unhealthy relationships with drugs; two, that an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs often conceals frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves; and three, that the eradication of all drugs is an impossible goal (Ferreira, 2017).
The current picture in Portugal is much different than the one painted before this reform. Since 2001, Portugal has seen a general reduction in drug use among the adolescent population, which had previously been a high-risk group. They have seen a great increase in the number of people who are receiving treatment and a huge decrease in the HIV infection rate, which at its highest was 104.2 cases per million people to 4 cases per million per year as of 2015. It is important to note that there are still consequences for drug related offences for those who do not wish to participate in programs provided by the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction. There are fines, community service, and the discontinuation of public benefits (Ferreira, 2017; Ren, 2019).
No Brainer
When I look at these kinds of numbers, it seems like a no brainer to remove the criminal stigma around drug use and treat it like the illness that it so obviously is. The funding seems straightforward, take the money spent on incarcerating all of these people and use it for treatment, housing, job training and subsidy. The problem lies in the timing of getting those programs set up and ready to help people when the laws change. Regardless of the obstacles, it appears a social/medical imperative that this change happen to truly heal what should be seen as an physical/mental health problem rather than a criminal one.
Ferreira, S. (2017, December 5). Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the
world copied it? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it
Ren. (2019, April 11). Portugal finds value in diversion of drug addicts to treatment instead of incarceration. Narconon. https://www.narconon.org/blog/portugal-diversion-of-drug-addicts-to-treatment.html
Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2021, February 27). Offences. https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp
National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2016, April 5). Opioid abuse and homelessness.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. (n.d.). Substance use and SUDs in LGBTQ* populations. https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/substance-use-suds-in-lgbtq-populations
King, M.L. (1956, December 3). Facing the challenge of a new age. First Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/facing-challenge-new-age-address-delivered-first-annual-institute-nonviolence