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April 15, 2009

Freedom works

I believe that legalizing drugs would on balance save lives in addition to making us safer. Evidence from Portugal suggests this is true:

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

Over the years I've become frustrated with how political The Scientific American has become on issues like anthropogenic climate change and gun control. It is nice to see they are open minded enough to still make reference to a study by the Libertarian Cato Institute.

Hat Tip Neatorama:
Decriminalizing Drug Use in Portugal: 5 Years Later

Posted by OneEyedMan at April 15, 2009 8:06 AM

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