U.N. Official: Portugal’s Policy ‘Appears to be Working’

Over at Drug War Rant, Peter Guither notes the strange reaction of a drug policy official to the new Cato report, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal:

Glenn Greenwald's excellent report (on the successful decriminalization of all drugs in Portugal for personal use) was picked up by Scientific American: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results

What really caught my attention in this article was that they got the UNODC to agree that it seemed to work, but the response was Kafkaesque.

Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says decriminalization in Portugal "appears to be working." He adds that his office is putting more emphasis on improving health outcomes, such as reducing needle-borne infections, but that it does not explicitly support decriminalization, "because it smacks of legalization." Yes, decrim works, but we don't support something that actually works because it sounds like something we're afraid want to talk about. Right.

A spokesperson for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment, citing the pending Senate confirmation of the office's new director, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also declined to comment on the report.Well, I guess no policy is better than what we're used to.

Glenn Greenwald has more on the reaction to his report here.