I agree that the Portuguese model is better. But the Portuguese model doesn’t imprison people unless they are dealers or they have more than 10 days supply for personal use.

Also, the majority of drug users in Portugal are cannabis users, not heroin users. I think that’s partly due to the fact that cannabis is relatively harmless unless it’s taken to excess (like alcohol) whereas heroin is almost always harmful. Portugal also treats different drugs differently in terms of their approach to harm reduction. So a heroin addict is not going to be treated the same as an occasional MDMA user. They have tailored approaches.

Portugal also paired their drug decriminalisation with a drug education campaign that was focused more on the evidence based risks of drugs rather than a blanket “just say no” campaign. That is likely way more effective steering kids away from high risk drugs like heroin than education that portrays all drugs as equally harmful, as a campaign that implies cannabis is going to ruin your life as well as heroin, if someone takes cannabis and are fine, they may go “well the drug campaign was propaganda re cannabis, maybe they exaggerated about heroin” and then try heroin. It’s like how cigarette health campaigns have successfully dropped rates of teen smoking and in my country (Australia) cigarette smoking is relatively rare now when it was very common a few decades ago. People already addicted won’t stop easily, but people are unlikely to try something that is going to give them lung cancer.

Likewise I’ve never touched opiates nor would I ever touch cocaine or meth. Because I don’t want to ruin my life.

I have however consumed cannabis with overwhelmingly positive effects, and I’m able to hold a successful job and have a good life, so it doesn’t harm me at all. I’ve also taken psychedelics occasionally.

Regarding heroin use in Philly, I think it’s partly due to the fact that decriminalisation is only done in some places not others that you have such a high proportion of heroin users in your city. If the entire USA decriminalised heroin use I don’t think that it would lead to a rise in heroin uptake by new users if it was paired with:

• Keeping the *supply* of heroin a criminal offense
• An evidence based campaign showing the negative consequences of heroin addiction (heroin addiction is its own disincentive to non opiate addicts)
• An overhaul of the legal opiate industry (for example Purdue Pharma is likely responsible for about 50% of all heroin users that came to heroin via prescribed painkillers like oxycontin)
• A judgement-free targeted approach to helping people addicted to painkillers who have not started using heroin or fentanyl yet (since many of them likely feel helpless and ashamed of the stigma of being an addict when they didn’t even choose to start taking these painkillers for fun, it was prescribed to them by a doctor)
• A better way to support people getting clean off heroin or fentanyl. As the withdrawal symptoms for opiates are some of the most awful for any drug. And it’s almost impossible to go cold turkey unless you have a LOT of support. Expecting people to be able to just get clean with pure willpower or because they fear going to jail — people will steal from their family, sell treasured possessions, become prostitutes because of how painful heroin withdrawal is. Jail is not an effective stick.