This week Time Magazine has an article discussing the new Cato report, “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal” by Glenn Greenwald. Excerpt:

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to “drug tourists” and exacerbate Portugal’s drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard‐​drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.


The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.


“Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

According to the Time web site, it is among the most frequently read and emailed articles in the current issue. If the drug czar wanted to keep Portugal’s decriminalization under wraps, it is safe to say that we foiled that plan!


Glenn Greenwald has more over at Salon. A Wall Street Journal op‐​ed mentioned the study over the weekend too. Watch or listen to the Cato event where Glenn presented his findings.