What can we learn from the Portuguese decriminalization of illicit drugs?

1
What can we learn from the Portuguese
decriminalization of illicit drugs?

• Dr Caitlin Hughes
• Drug Policy Modelling Program
• NDARC, The University of New South Wales
• Co-author Professor Alex Stevens
• University of Kent
• ACT Legislative Assembly
• Thursday, 17 Nov 2011
• DPMP is funded by the Colonial Foundation Trust

2
Decriminalisation vs legalisation?

• Decriminalisation removal of sanctions under
  criminal law, with optional use of alternate
  sanctions
• Legalisation complete removal of sanctions,
  making behaviour legal and applying no criminal
  or administrative penalty

3
Portugal pre reform

• Low prevalence of lifetime drug use e.g. In 2001
  7.8 of pop aged 15-64 reported ever having used
  an illicit drug
• Increasing rates of problematic drug use, HIV,
  Hepatitis C
• Growing concern over the social exclusion and
  marginalization of drug users
• Perception that criminalization of drug use was
  worsening the problem

4
The Portuguese reform

• Aim
• 1. To remove drug users from the criminal justice
  system
• 2. To discourage and/or treat drug use
• Law 30/2000 use, possession and acquisition of
  all illicit drugs, when in small quantities,
  deemed a public order offence
• Detected users sanctioned through Commissions for
  the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction (CDTs) which
  employ a panel of experts
• CDTs seek to
• Discuss pattern of drug use and motivations and
  circumstances of use
• Refer dependent people to treatment
• Provide alternate sanctions for non-dependent
• Introduced as part of a new national drug
  strategy that expanded treatment, harm reduction
  etc services

5
Key features of the Portuguese decriminalisation

• Applies to all illicit drugs (most other examples
  of decriminalisation apply to cannabis only)
• Legislative reform (not just practice based)
• Seeks to provide a therapeutic and social
  response (not just the removal of criminal
  sanctions)
• Employs drug law reform as a tool to enable
  other drug policy levers treatment, harm
  reduction, social inclusion, law enforcement etc

6
Proviso

• The lack of a non-reform Portugal and the
  multiplicity of changes make it impossible to
  attribute any changes in drug use or related harm
  directly to the fact or form of the Portuguese
  decriminalization
• Yet, we can test the hypotheses aired at the
  time, that the reform would
• Incite interest in drug use
• Increase drug related harms
• Reduce the ability of the criminal justice system
  to function effectively

7
CDTs numbers processed
8
CDT rulings made
9
Did reform incite drug use?
10
Trends in any illicit drug use - general
population (aged 15-64)
11
Trends in recent use by age group
12
Trends in recent use by drug type
13
Trends in school students - recent cannabis use
(ESPAD data)
14
Did reform increase drug-related harms?
15
Trends in problematic drug users(per 1000 pop
aged 1564 years) Portugal vs. Italy
16
Impacts on drug-induced deaths
Drug-related deaths Deaths that involve a
positive post-mortem toxicological test for the
presence of any illicit substance (regardless of
whether or not the drug caused the death) .
Drug-induced deaths Deaths that physicians
determined according to International
Classification of Disease protocols to be
directly attributable to drug use .
17
Impacts on drug-related HIV and treatment
provision
2000 2008
No. users with HIV 907 267
No. users with AIDS 506 108
1998 2008
No. in drug treatment 23,654 38,532
18
Did reform reduce the capacity of the criminal
justice system to function effectively?
19
Portugal Trends in CJS burden-1
20
Portugal Trends in CJS burden-2
21
Trends in Spain
22
Impact on prisons and law enforcement ability

• Impacts on prisons
• Between 1999 and 2008 proportion of drug-related
  offenders in prison decreased from 44 to 21
• Between 2001 and 2007 use of heroin within prison
  decreased from 27 to 13
• Both findings have been very welcome, due to the
  historic overcrowding of Portuguese prisons.
• Impacts on law enforcement ability
• Law enforcement officials suggest they have been
  able to
• refocus their attention on the upper end of the
  drug market
• enhance their international collaborative
  efforts and
• introduce more systematic investigative
  techniques.
• Supported by increased quantity of seizures post
  reform

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Implications

• Ten years post reform there is evidence of
• Only small increases in recent drug use
• Reductions in the prevalence of problematic drug
  use
• Increased uptake of treatment
• Reduction in drug-induced deaths and HIV
• Reduced burden on criminal justice system,
  particularly prison
• Important to emphasise this is not only a
  consequence of the law reform
• But this indicates that even when conducted for
  all illicit drugs
• Decriminalising use, possession and acquisition
  will not inevitably lead to a rampant increase in
  illicit drug use
• Nor does it appear to lead automatically to an
  increase in drug-related harms
• It may even assist governments to reduce net harm
  to the general community

24
Thank You

• Contact details
• Dr Caitlin Hughes
• P 61 2 9385 0132
• E caitlin.hughes_at_unsw.edu.au
• For more information see
• Hughes, C.E. Stevens, A. (2010)
• What can we learn from the Portuguese
  decriminalization of illicit drugs? British
  Journal of Criminology,
• 50(6), 999-1022.
• Hughes, C.E. (2006) Overcoming obstacles to
  reform? Making and shaping drug policy in
  contemporary Portugal and Australia, PhD thesis,
  Department of Criminology, The University of
  Melbourne.