Portugal COERCED Drug Addicts To Quit — Missing This Point About Portugal Is Obscene

I’m pretty sure drug policy advocates by and large don’t look into the details in Portugal’s successful drug model. By decriminalizing drugs, Portugal lowered drug addiction burdens for society by providing treatment and connection instead of disconnecting incarceration and isolation. That’s what you hear all the time from drug policy reformers — and they’re persuasive on that point.

Here’s an important detail people frequently seem to miss.

Portugal decriminalized drugs, but they also used coercive interventions to help people with drug addictions. They didn’t turn Portugal into a haven like San Francisco, where you can shit on the streets and die in front of everybody without someone stopping you. They had more compassion — and this is the detail we need to focus on.

How did they have compassion? Like this:

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1415345836913922054?s=20&t=5wUC7pjq_3Gk4ILS9DUt7g