[codeshaman]

Just back from Boom Festival in Portugal, where personal drug use is decriminalized.

There was almost no police/security at the gates or inside the festival, although selling drugs was not tolerated (eg. people selling on the festival grounds were kindly asked to leave). There were 42.000 people from 152 countries and most of them used some kind of substance or plant there (marijuana being the most abundantly and openly used). As a consequence (or despite this?), this was one of the safest and warmest places I have ever seen.

Instead of police watching everyone, there were a number of premises: there was a drug info stand, were one could go and test their drugs. The queue was quite long there, people stood 2+ hours in the queue to test their substances.

Then there was the Kosmic Care, a place were 20+ psychologists, doctors and shamans would bring people having 'bad' trips back to earth. They had 70 'bad' trippers in the first night alone and they were expecting a lot more on the full moon night. I've spoken to the psychologists there (out of curiosity, not because of a bad trip :) ) and they told me that that the majority of bad trips were caused by people taking 'fake' LSD. In fact, she said, 50% of the LSD people tested was not actually LSD but some designer substance with unknown consequences and effects. Other reasons for bad trips - was people mixing substances or taknig too much (usually young, unexperienced people) and people having prior mental illness.

I asked a guy there, how can one prevent people from having a bad trip again and the answer was 'well, after such an experience, most people grow up pretty quickly and it's unlikely they would take these substances lightly the next time'.

In most countries, these young people would end up in a hospital and then get arrested and possibly spend time in jail.

The war on drugs has caused a lot of suffering and has done very little to reduce drug use or addiction, yet it costs billions every year.

Protugal's approach to drugs is a great example of how the negative effects of drug use can be handled with minimal costs and lead to positive outcomes in drug users. All it takes is a bit of acceptance and common sense.

[awildone]

Portugal is certainly one step in the right direction. I lived and worked there for three months and it's all very relaxed. Cops don't really care about people rolling joints or even doing lines of coke in public if there's a party (and if you are in Portugal, there will be). Quietly puffing a joint while walking down the street in the middle of the day is cool as well. I actually never saw the cops interfere with anything while I was there, even though there are cops everywhere. There is one more thing about Portugal and drugs that needs to be said though: never, ever buy anything being offered to you. And you will be offered drugs ten times a day while just walking down the street. It's all fake, they're just out to scam you and steal your stuff, and they're pretty good at it. Just say no, thank you and go ask the cool kids hanging out in Martim Moniz instead. Good hash, coke and heroin is easily obtainable and cheap.

[tomp]

That's the problem with decriminalizing drugs, really. It's still very much a grey market, with no business backing, no brands, no quality control. Drugs have to be fully legalized. I think what some US states are doing (opening marijuana for businesses, enabling them to build a brand/reputation) is the way forward (but, of course, for all kinds of drugs instead).

[stonemetal]

>even though there are cops everywhere. ... you will be offered drugs ten times a day while just walking down the street. It's all fake, they're just out to scam you and steal your stuff, and they're pretty good at it.

That is a step in the right direction? What was it like before beaten by the cops and robbed 10 times a day?

[warfangle]

In 1999, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV amongst IV drug users in the EU. There were 2,000 new cases a year - in a country of 10 million. Almost half of new cases were among IV drug users.

Gotta understand something about Portugal: 'til '74, it was a dictatorship. Then it was a military junta. It finally became a democracy in '76. Then, a little under a decade later, when cheap heroin flooded the world. The US saw it in the 80's too.

But it was much, much worse there.

> What was it like before[,] beaten by the cops and robbed 10 times a day?

Had nothing to do with that. It was about 'the population has an endemic drug problem leading to widespread ennui and HIV/AIDs, and even some of the harshest drug laws in Europe are doing absolutely nil to quell it.'

[awildone]

Assuming Lisbon of course, but I guess that's where most people end up on their first visit to the country...

[lifeisstillgood]

Yes ... But absolutely everything you say could apply to alcohol during say Prohibition. Look people taking the moonshine to be tested, people enjoying booze sensibly ...

We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives.

Yes, stop this crazy war on drugs, but don't expect some nirvana to appear - people with a variety of mental and personality problems are not going to "grow up". They still need to be dealt with - and we are unforgiving of mental illness and have barely moved past the "cut it off and cauterise the wound" phase of treatment.

The war on drugs is mostly masking a war on mental health.

[coldtea]

>We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives

You don't just need to have a "sane policy".

You need to have a sane culture.

For one, a culture that doesn't treat alcohol as something necessary for having fun (e.g binge drinking on weekends, etc), but as something social you can have while eating with friends, etc.

Second, a culture (society) that doesn't cripple people, produce mass stress and depression, etc so that they take it to alcohol and drugs.

As long as you don't have those, there will always be people taking it to alcoholism. Heck, even with those you'll still have some people (but much less). But then again people can destroy themselves in 200 other ways too, if they are so inclined (from over- and under-eating to straight suicide).

[lifeisstillgood]

Yes policy is not the right word, but we have many cultures around drinking alcohol, and sayin that some of them are the wrong culture and this the cause of trouble is either just labelling those of that culture as "troublemakers" which just leads downwards, or a more enlightened question is why are those cultures toxic - which tends to lead back to mental illness, depravation, lack of opportunity and lack of ... A culture that values more ...

And we are back again. Humans are a problem.

[untothebreach]

Couldn't agree with this more. It seems that too often we look to policy to solve problems that really need to be addressed at a lower level. The problem with that is that changing the law is easy, when compared with changing the culture.

[lukifer]

I'm reminded of the story of Rat Park: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

[innguest]

I thought I was the only one that knew about that study. I use it often when arguing that the word 'addiction' is biased and we should just use 'habit'. Addiction makes it seem it's the substance's fault, that it has something that makes people addicted to it, when in fact it is people that sometimes have a predisposition to forming habits when taking certain substances.

Crazy people can't buy guns, but guns aren't illegal for everyone. It should be the same for drugs, at least. If you have this predisposition to habit forming around drugs then you can't have them, but most of us don't.

[codeshaman]

I would have to disagree with you on alcohol. Alcohol is a very addictive and destructive substance and can cause personality changes which lead to aggression and domination (ego enhancer) and is very harmful to health if abused. A large chunk of problems in our society comes from alcohol abuse.

Some of the substances which are generically called 'illegal drugs', however, are much safer and self-limiting and many have virtually no harmful physical effects on the body (based on decades of clandestine use and research).

I'm refering to psychedelics and marijuana, drugs which I'm familiar with and have studied extensively through literature and some self experimentation. Apart from being much safer, some of these drugs have major upsides, when used therapeutically and can cure illnesses that modern medicine is unable to cure.

And if used by brilliant people to start with, they have the power to transform society in unbelievable ways: the tech revolution was started by young, brilliant people who've been inspired by psychedelic trips or psychedelic music/art/culture, produced by the counterculture of the '60s.

Some drugs, like heroin or cocaine have both a big abuse potential and can be harmful to the body, although none are as destructive as alcohol. Rational and sensible recovery and detox programs, combined with unrestricted access to safer drugs (like marijuana) can reduce the risks associated with these 'hard drugs'.

Portugal decriminalized drug use due to the alarming rates of addiction to opiates among youth in 2001. As a consequence, the opiate addiction problem is pretty much under control there.

Nicotine is another extremely addictive substance, yet sensible policy and access to valid information has led a lot of people to quit using it due to health concerns in developed countries, although developing countries have seen a rise in nicotine use.

On the other extreme - countries which ban all kinds of drugs (including alcohol) are seeing strong religious domination, which leads to extremism and terrorism, so total prohibition of altered states of consciousness is also bad.

There is a great book, called 'Animals and Psychedelics' in which it is reported that most animals, including insects are using various plants to intoxicate themselves, even though those plants are not suitable as food. They just like to get stoned or high or drunk and go to great lengths to find their intoxicants.

We should accept once and for all that human beings seek and require altered states of consciousness and not treat drug use as a 'societal cancer', but rather try to understand - why do we do it ? Why do animals do it ? Is there a evolutionary benefit in it ? Are there good parts in getting high, besides having fun ?

[pionar]

> drugs which I'm familiar with and have studied extensively through literature and some self experimentation.

Sorry, a sample size of one does not make a drug "safe". The fact is, there's no such thing as a safe drug, as everyone's body reacts differently to each one.

> although none are as destructive as alcohol.

Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is not as destructive as alcohol? While there are more alcoholics than horse heads, that's because there's more people that drink alcohol as a whole. Are there any studies for the ratio of abusers/users for heroin and alcohol?

> Nicotine is another extremely addictive substance.

The difference being, nicotine's psychoactive effects are minor compared to hard drugs. People don't die from a nicotine overdose.

[duncanawoods]

>> Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the >> most addictive drugs in the world, is not as destructive >> as alcohol?

In terms of the chemicals themselves, this is generally considered to be true.

The risks of heroin are in unsanitary IV injections, OD from impure/variable product and the lifestyle of a street addict. Aside from addiction, similar pharmaceutical preparations of opiates (codeine, morphine etc.) is widespread.

However with alcohol, we have the short-term effect of injury and 100s of longer term conditions including cirrhosis and alcoholic dementia. It may be less addictive but the irreversible physical damage of the substance itself is much higher. AFAIK there is no medical benefit to high levels of blood-alcohol and only harm.

In terms of societal harms, we get extensive petty theft of heroin addicts but UK A&E and jail cells are dominated by the violence and injury fuelled by alcohol use.

>> People don't die from a nicotine overdose.

The number of smoking related deaths is truly shocking so I wouldn't trivialise it. Recovered heroin addicts often report breaking smoking addiction to be even harder.

[Xylakant]

>> although none are as destructive as alcohol.

> Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is not as destructive as alcohol? While there are more alcoholics than horse heads, that's because there's more people that drink alcohol as a whole. Are there any studies for the ratio of abusers/users for heroin and alcohol?

Your parent poster is right here. Heroin (and opiates in general) are pretty safe substances in pure form. That's one of the reasons that opiates are still among the preferred potent pain killers in hospitals: Little side effects, extremely potent, a very big window between effective dose and overdose. If you're in really bad pain, at least in germany, you'll get a morphine drip.

The "drug" effects you see in documentaries about drug often are no effects of the drug itself, rather than the stuff that the dealers mix the drug with, the use of unclean needles (infections and stuff) and the conditions that the addicts live in. Overdoses are typically either on purpose or most of the time the result of extreme variations in the potency of the drug. There was (or still is) a medical trial that gave clean, controlled heroin to hard addicts in Hamburg, Germany and from what I read that trial was very successful: The people in the trial were basically able to function in a normal day live with a regular job. Obviously no driving, no handling heavy machinery, but otherwise a major step up from living on the street.

[JoeAltmaier]

But all those side effects are the direct result of using morphine, right? Splitting hairs to say 'so morphine is safe'. It like 'this knife is safe; its just the cuts that hurt you'.

Still, alcohol is more destructive overall since so many more people abuse it.

[tych0]

No, those are side effects of using morphine (heroin) that you got from a shady drug dealer network, instead of something more pure from a regulated corner store.

[win_ini]

> The difference being, nicotine's psychoactive effects are minor compared to hard drugs. People don't die from a nicotine overdose.

Correction- People have died from Nicotine - and with e-cigs there;s concern that it may become more common:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning

"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in report released today that the number of phone calls to U.S. poison control centers related to e-cigarette use has increased from just one call per month on average in 2010 to nearly 200 calls per month in early 2014." http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2014/04/03/e-cigarette-po...

[elsjaako]

Nicotine overdose would be more common if people injected it. Smoking heroin isn't actually that dangerous (though admittedly, more dangerous short term than smoking tobacco). Why don't people smoke it then? Because the illegality makes it really expensive, and injecting is more effective.

[tbrownaw]

On the other extreme - countries which ban all kinds of drugs (including alcohol) are seeing strong religious domination, which leads to extremism and terrorism, so total prohibition of altered states of consciousness is also bad.

And here I thought the causality went the other way; that is that religions like to ban alternative (ie, non-religious) means of altering your state.

Silly me.

[zo1]

"The war on drugs is mostly masking a war on mental health."

It's a war on people's right to enjoy and/or destroy themselves. All under the vague pretense of a social-good.

It's to keep control over a populace that could very quickly come to the realization that it is free to do as it pleases. Unfortunately, the more we suppress people like this, the worse off it will be when the milk and lies finally run out and they're stuck with nothing but their anger and dependance.

[josefresco]

Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities. I'm welcome your anecdotal evidence but don't find it at all relevant to the topic of how a state should handle the legal and health consequences of heroin abuse. A bunch of party-goers doing recreational drugs couldn't be farther from the realities of heroin addiction in a rural population.

[david_b]

Your comment is slightly off-the-mark as his comment wasn't merely about a festival, but also about his opinion on Portugals drug policy. As your comment implies that you aren't familiar with said policy, you may wish to recap Portugals efforts in drug decriminalization:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

While it is apparently hard to say how effective these efforts were, it is quite easy to see that the neo-prohibitionists worst nightsmares have yet to happene in Portugal.

[DanHulton]

You do realize that a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal? The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics, these things all make the addiction far, far worse than if we treated this whole thing a little saner and more compassionately.

[at-fates-hands]

>>> The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics

Where do you live?

There's a myriad of state and federally funded programs here in the US that help people get treatment for a nominal fee or in many cases for free. Not sure how much more compassionate you can be when you're giving people a free alternative to get clean.

Also, if you've never had an addict for a friend or a relative, then you'll never know it doesn't matter how compassionate you are to them, if they want to use and continue to throw their life away - they will. They have to be willing to help themselves first. No amount of free clinics, health care or compassion will combat that.

[jpgvm]

> if they want to use and continue to throw their life away

This is exactly the marginalization he was talking about. Some of the smartest people I know love hard drugs and are very successful, are they throwing their life away because they use on a regular basis?

Maybe you are only talking about the outright stoners that just get high every day, but are they really any different to the other lazy people that don't work? Not doing anything ever is generally what I would consider to be throwing your life away.

I don't think drug use has much to do with throwing your life away, apart from the depression that comes from being marginalized. People that wish to throw their life away will do so with or without drugs.

[bryondowd]

The marginalization comes from the fact that you can't participate in society if you are a drug user/abuser. Even if you are healthy enough to be a productive, upstanding member in every other way, the system is designed to tear you down at any moment, based on nothing but the fact that you use an illegal substance. Some people use regularly, but can still maintain and even excel in a job, and keep a healthy social life without anyone even being aware of the drug use or addiction. But they have to live with the knowledge that they are one drug screening away from being out of a job, regardless of performance, and that they can always be arrested the next time they have to purchase their vice, which would likely also lead to loss of a job and social ramifications.

If we treated addicts the same way we treated someone with any other mental or physical ailment, it would make it so much easier for them to actually function in society without "getting clean". Which might actually help a few of the ones who want to get clean, because from what I understand, it is much easier to kick a habit when you have more going for you, like a career and social life.

Just my two cents, from anecdotal evidence knowing drug users in a few different circumstances. Never been a user myself.

[spacemanmatt]

I might not like it, but I don't consider it my place to judge how others deal (or fail to deal) with their problems, how they lead their lives. What's entirely unfair, and not helping anyone, is criminalization of drugs.

[smcl]

Remember that this is not particular to that festival in Portugal, but to the entirety of Portugal

[drzaiusapelord]

>Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities

Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth?

Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that he was on drugs:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on...

“In describing it to the police later, they said ‘We never see cases like that where the attacker isn’t on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,” Lenet said. “There’s no way a normal person could have sustained that much punishment, and just walked away.”

The problem with the pro-legalization crowd is that we don't have any consistency. Some of us just want pot legalized but most of the movement seems to have this pie-in-the-sky view of legalizing just about everything. I'm afraid that we have two extremists groups: "no drugs" vs "all drugs" and per usual sane moderate voices are drowned out.

I just don't believe a "one size fits all" mentality will work here. I just don't think we should legalize drugs that are physically addictive like heroin, PCP, meth, etc.

[mikeash]

How does making the stuff illegal handle gangbangers on meth, exactly?

The anti-legalization crowd seems to hold it as an article of faith that criminalizing drug use results in less drug use. The arguments always come down to some variation on, "Freedom is good, but drugs are bad, so sometimes it's worth making them illegal."

I think you need to show that criminalizing physically addictive drugs like heroin, PCP, meth, etc. actually reduces their use. The evidence available so far from places like Portugal seems to indicate the opposite, although the data is far from clear.

I mean, your PCP example is from a place where all of this stuff is already highly illegal. How is that not an argument against criminalization?

[mpthrapp]

C'mon, don't know you know that making something illegal automatically makes everyone in the world stop doing it? /s

No, but seriously - and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir - we desperately need reforms in both the Mental Health and Drug sectors in the US. Vermont's initiative seems to be a step in the right direction. It reminds me a bit of the Canadian Insite[1], which is a place where addicts can go to be in a sterile environment and be under medical supervision while they use.

[1]http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/

[kaitai]

Decriminalization would have a disproportionately good impact on the south side of Chicago. Remember, black kids are less likely to use drugs than white kids, but then have roughly equal arrest rates (not per drug use, per person) and then ridiculously disproportionate incarceration rates.

Some interesting books on the topic include "High Price" by neuroscientist Carl Hart, which I enjoyed because it touched personally on the gangbanging aspect, and "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander, which instead takes a structural/legal point of view. "High Price" also discusses our psychological reactions to drugs like nicotine, marijuana, and LSD -- the author talks about interactions between environment, personal psychology, and chemical and how different behaviors can result.

You can explore drug use rates at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickconfig.do?34481-... and notice that for a few drugs use is similar across black/white racial lines (crack, heroin) and for most other drugs skews very white. Look at cocaine, for instance.

[true_religion]

> Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that he was on drugs:

If you attack people, it doesn't matter how drug friendly your country is... you'll still be arrested just the same as if you attacked someone while sober.

[mpthrapp]

Yup. Just because a substance is legal, doesn't mean using it absolves you of responsibility for your actions while using it. Look at alcohol.

[Noted]

I think the point was the few lines after that about the punishment the attacker withstood, presumably due to the drugs. Subduing someone on PCP can be much more difficult than someone who is drunk or high from other substances

[mpthrapp]

Yeah, why would we ever legalize physically addictive drugs like cigarettes or alcohol? Oh wait.

I'm not saying anything about the legalization of Heroin, just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization.

[drzaiusapelord]

I'm all for making nicotine illegal. Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin.

>just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization.

Probably better than the current standards. I'd love to live somewhere where cigarettes were illegal and pot wasn't.

[mpthrapp]

> Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin.

Yes it is. It's a GABA antagonist.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence#Drugs_that...

[vidarh]

As others have pointed out, alcohol very much is physically addictive.

As for heroin, the rates of addiction to heroin amongst heroin users is similar to that of alcohol - most heroin users are casual users, just like most users of alcohol. You just don't see the casual heroin users as easily, because they don't exactly advertise what they do. Nor do you see the large proportion of heroin addicts that manage to lead relatively normal lives.

It's not like heroin is a good thing, and that heroin addiction is something we should brush under the carpet, but for existing heroin addicts, lack of safe access to consistent doses is a far greater hazard than heroin itself.

Meanwhile nicotine on its own is not particularly addictive, nor particularly harmful - it needs to be mixed with other substances to become much of a problem.

[JoeAltmaier]

Ok naieve non-user here, no idea what heroin use is like except what I see in the media.

But it takes some kind of nerves to inject a drug, unlike say drinking from a glass or lighting up. I have to believe heroin is the resort of fairly desperate people. Some emotional or physical compulsion must exist to overcome the natural inclination to not jab yourself with a needle. So I have to believe the risk of heroin use escalating is accelerated by that compulsion.

I'd love to see your statistics on the demographics of 'casual heroin users'. And how long they remain that way without some crisis.

[innguest]

> alcohol very much is physically addictive

> nicotine on its own is not particularly addictive

No drug is addictive. This word "addictive" is a rhetorical strategy to shift the blame from people's genetic and psychological predispositions onto a substance that by itself is harmless.

I drink alcohol about once every two months. I'm not addicted to it. Therefore, alcohol is not "addictive". It only takes one counter-example to disprove that assertion.

I've also tried cigarettes in the past. Never got addicted. So it can't be that nicotine is "addictive".

Nothing is "addictive". People are either more prone to forming habits around certain substances and behaviors, or they aren't.

This is important because thinking that substances are to blame is what got them banned in the first place, and that is the wrong approach to the problem of treating people with strong habits around unhealthy substances. This point of view only harms those that need the most help. They cannot help that they have certain genes or that their brains are wired in a certain way.

[astrodust]

You can die from an alcohol dependency if you're not treated properly when going sober. For about 10% of the population that is pre-disposed to alcoholism it is extremely addictive.

[girvo]

Yes it is, very much so. The withdrawals are one of the few that can straight up kill you.

[api]

I fail to see how ruining peoples' lives with criminal convictions, records, and incarceration helps anyone in any case. Addiction is a psychological and medical problem.

The real insult is that alcohol is legal. Heavy alcohol use results in severe addiction and physical harm comparable to chronic heroin and amphetamine abuse. Yet we treat alcoholism as a psychological and a medical problem (which it is), and do not further ruin the addict's life and worsen their problems with incarceration and persecution.

[JonLim]

I think they had a drug testing booth in Barcelona when I was there last summer for Sónar, and there was a massive line up of people.

Not sure what Spain's outlook on drug use is, but it was rather refreshing to see that level of education and emphasis on safety compared to what I've seen in festivals in Toronto and NYC.

[ollysb]

From my experience in Granada it's pretty relaxed. I recall going to a Granada football game(they're in the top division), with a policeman standing on the steps next to my seat there was some guys smoking some joints right in front of us. They may as well have been drinking a beer for all the attention he was giving them.

[galfarragem]

Portugal positive approach on drug problem was just the natural reaction to the collapse we had in late 80's and early-mid 90's. Politics claim it was a result of their policies. That is BS. In the end, government policies had very low impact. The only successful policy (on AIDS control, not on drugs) was the free syringe exchange at pharmacies.

The real problem was solved based on the lazy approach of "laissez-faire" (with consumption decriminalization) like a lot of stuff here (for the good and ill), "letting the market solve it": During the 90's the drug problem was huge! As an example, in my home town, that generation doesn't exist (people born during 70's). Almost all men (and some women) from that generation were involved on hard drugs (heroine). A large percentage of them went to prison and didn't come back, another large percentage of them died drugs related. Kids from that time (including myself) saw the dark side of being on drugs seated in first row: it was their neighbors and older brothers, not a stupid tale on TV.

Being on drugs since that moment was not cool anymore. Slowly, young people mentalities improved to "being on hard drugs is not cool". Nowadays, the sentiment is more mixed, hard drugs are not anymore seen as a boogeyman: some forgot what happened, others didn't see it with their eyes. Anyway, I don't think we will come back to 90's again. We were coming from a dictatorship, young generations wanted freedom and there were no visible bad examples of drug addiction. Times are different now, drugs are also cheaper, lesser need to be a petty criminal and involve all society like before.

[DAddYE]

Switzerland (not in the UE) was one of the first countries where some drugs were permitted (like weed). Although (IIRC around 2000) they stopped.

Another country Nederland is well know in Europe for being very freedom with drugs. In Nederland in the latest few years they had several calls to put drugs on ban.

I visited Switzerland hundreds of times (it's like 15 miles where was my house) I have been in Amsterdam 4 times.

What I can say is that "citizens" were kinda sick and seems is not a thing anymore. Although is still a big big business economy for "tourists".

I think this thing of legalizing light drugs in america is like tobacco in 60-80', it was cool, trendy out of the scheme, but suddenly... things changed so much that I bet there are less tobacco smokers in California than the smallest town of Portugal.