During the 1980s, Portugal had a national drug problem where robberies and muggings were rampant. At the start of 1980, there was an influx of heroin in the once quiet fishing town of Olhao, Portugal. This influx made Olhao one of the top drug capitals in Europe. Because of this 1 in 100 Portuguese citizens began dealing with heroin addiction and the HIV infection rate became the highest in Europe.
Simply, Portugal was unprepared for the influx of marijuana and heroin. They had previously been ruled under Antonio Salazar’s oppressive regime. This government prohibited education and implemented stringent rules. This meant that the average citizen was uneducated and oppressed. Once they shifted towards an open economy, Portuguese residents had access to all the goods they could imagine, including drugs. The lack of education lead thousands of people to use heroin.
In an attempt to reduce crime, the new Portuguese government decriminalized all drugs in 2001. Instead of being arrested, an individual who is caught possessing drugs will have multiple options. They can be fined, given a warning, or go to a local “commission”. At a commission a doctor, lawyer, and social worker talks to the addict about “treatment, harm reduction, and support services that are available to them”. These actions are based on Portugal's three tenets regarding drug addiction. The first tenet is that “there’s no such thing as a soft or hard drug, only healthy and unhealthy relationships with drugs”. The second idea is that “an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs often conceals frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves”. The final tenet is that “the eradication of all drugs is an impossible goal”.
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