[drefgert]

The critical part missing from portugals policy is that drugs must be legal to buy and sell (via controlled channels).

Decriminalizing use helps, but legalizing sales take out the crime and ensures the health of users through clean product.

[cpncrunch]

Even with clean heroin, there is still a danger from overdose.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...

You could perhaps consider it as a Darwin award...sell heroin to anyone who wants it, and then if they become addicted and overdose, at least it clears the gene pool of people who are too dumb to use it responsibly. /s

Note, that is not my viewpoint, but I wonder if that's what some of the proponents of legalization are thinking. Obviously heroin has a huge effect on the brain and personality, and it's very difficult to get off it once you're addicted. So there is some rationale to the idea that keeping heroin illegal is helping prevent people from getting involved with it in the first place.

Right now it's (arguably) mostly thrill-seekers or people self-medicating psychological problems or chronic pain (which in itself has a large psychological aspect) using heroin. If you legalize it you potentially open it up to a much larger group who might not have otherwise considered using it.

[toyg]

No proposer of legalization ever thought of it as "a darwin award". If anything, it's the opposite: treating addiction as a health issue usually ensures people will survive - both users, who get "clean" drugs in predictable quantities; and dealers, who can come out of the underworld and not risk their lives running from the police or from other gangs.

The current criminalization is extremely darwinistic: only the most violent thugs survive in the supply chain, and only the smartest users.

I don't think legalizing will increase usage of heroin, because its health problems are huge and extremely well-known. Like putting ferrets up your bum, people are not going to do it simply "because it's legal".

[whiddershins]

The risk of overdose is very much increased by lack of quality control.

[gozur88]

I agree with this. Legalization, with regulation, is a workable system. Decriminalization engenders disrespect for the law - there are too many inconsistencies.

[icebraining]

I actually expect the inconsistencies to increase. The legalization (restricted to cannabis) is being introduced as two separate law proposals, for medicinal and recreational uses, so you might end up with just the former, and all it implies in terms of regulation.