The Portuguese Experiment: Full Picture

“Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. By 2015 when Hari reported it, the results were remarkable. By 2024, they were more mixed. The model works when the social investment matches the policy.”

In 1999, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Western Europe: approximately one percent of the population was addicted to heroin, and HIV transmission among injecting drug users was among the highest in Europe. The government commissioned a panel of experts to recommend a response.

The panel's 2000 report was radical: decriminalize personal possession of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and redirect the enforcement savings into treatment, housing, and employment for addicts. The Dissuasion Commission system replaced criminal courts with panels of counselors, lawyers, and social workers who could assign treatment, community service, or fines, but not prison.

Johann Hari reported the 2001-2015 results in Chasing the Scream as a vindication of the connection model: drug-related HIV transmission fell dramatically, overdose deaths fell, drug use among young people did not increase, and the money saved on imprisonment was redirected to services. The Portuguese model became the most-cited international example of successful drug decriminalization.

The longer view, available by 2024, is more complicated. Portugal faced a fentanyl and synthetic opioid crisis through the late 2010s and early 2020s that drove drug-related deaths upward. Austerity measures following the 2008 financial crisis cut many of the social programs that had made the model work, the housing, the employment, the treatment capacity. When the social investment declined, so did the outcomes.

This is not a refutation of Portugal's approach but a specification of it: decriminalization alone produces modest results. Decriminalization combined with substantial investment in social services produces the dramatic results Hari documented. The lesson is not that punishment is unnecessary, it's that the social support must accompany the policy reform, or the policy reform works much less well.

Sources

• Hari, Chasing the Scream (2015)
• EMCDDA, Portugal Country Drug Report (2023)
• Hughes & Stevens, Br J Criminol (2010)