> That’s what happened in Portugal, after drug decriminalization — drug consumption there went up significantly (with exception of heroin, which went down, but it also went down in other European countries at the same time which did not decriminalize it). Full on legalization will increase consumption even higher.
...Do you have sources on this? My awareness of Portugal's situation is basically the opposite of that, ascertained via [1][2][3] et al. I'm interested in dissenting information if it's available. I also wonder why it is that the assumption is "more drug use" == "bad" when the range of things that constitute 'drugs' is so wide - from alcohol to cannabis to lsd to cocaine, there's a ton of delta between the effects (sociological and personal) of use.
...Do you have sources on this? My awareness of Portugal's situation is basically the opposite of that, ascertained via [1][2][3] et al. I'm interested in dissenting information if it's available. I also wonder why it is that the assumption is "more drug use" == "bad" when the range of things that constitute 'drugs' is so wide - from alcohol to cannabis to lsd to cocaine, there's a ton of delta between the effects (sociological and personal) of use.
[1] https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-po... [2] https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1... [3] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald...