-
-
And The Results Are Staggering
On July 1st, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.
Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong.
Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labeling drug users as criminals to labeling them as people affected by a disease. This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow.
-
The war on drugs is a failure and immediate, major reforms of the global drug prohibition regime are needed to halt the spread of HIV infection and other drug war harms.
Today we launched a new Global Commission on Drug Policy report with a livestreamed conference from London, calling for drug decriminalisation and and expansion of proven, cost-effective solutions to reduce HIV/AIDS.
-
Professor David Nutt discusses his book Drugs – Without the Hot Air, and argues that society’s prohibition of psychedelic substances is preventing groundbreaking science.
-
-
-
A View from Guatemala
Secretary Fernando Carrera discussed recent proposals made by Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina regarding drug legalization.
-
By Bill Frezza
Once in a great while a writer at the opposite end of the political spectrum gets you to look at a familiar set of facts in a new way. Disconcerting as it is, you can feel your foundation shift as your mind struggles to reconcile this new point of view with long held beliefs. Michelle Alexander has done just that in her book, The New Jim Crow.
A liberal ideologue with impeccable leftist credentials, Alexander was Director of the Racial Justice Project at the American Civil Liberties Union before moving on to an appointment in Race and Ethnicity studies at Ohio State University. Her thesis pushes disparate-impact logic to an extreme, ascribing deeply racist motives to a society that has traveled a very long way since the system of legal and cultural discrimination known as Jim Crow stained the land.
Yet there is no denying that if your goal were to consign African Americans to a permanent underclass—one which the rest of us would be culturally and legally permitted to discriminate against in employment, housing, voting rights, and government benefits—the war on drugs would be a great way to do it.
-
By Richard Branson
One minute survey:
We believe it is time to end the criminalisation and stigmatising of drug users to more effectively combat drug use and drug related crime.
Criminal syndicates should face the law and jail time but people with drug problems need health care, not prison!
We would greatly appreciate it if you could take this quick five question survey on the war on drugs.
