[Redway]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20648276

''Portugal has not legalised drugs - but it has a system of not imposing criminal penalties on drug users who enter into special programmes designed to end their habit.''

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, expressed concern about the possible impact on cannabis use.
"If the report is to be responsible, it must take account of the specific damage that cannabis can do to the developing brain, not only as recent studies have shown inducing irreversible cognitive deterioration but in around 10% of cases triggering severe psychotic illness," she said

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereport...rug_addic.html

''Drug trafficking remains a serious criminal offence: Portugal hasn't legalised drugs. But people caught with a quantity of drugs deemed for their personal use (roughly ten days' supply) are sent to a local dissuasion commission panel.
The one I attended consisted of a social worker and a legal expert and they were looking at the case of Joanna, a heroin addict. The commission has the power to issue fines - while no longer a criminal offence, possession is still prohibited in Portugal - but the user here is addicted to drugs, so a fine is ruled inapplicable. The commission encourages her to go into treatment by offering to suspend other sanctions''

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_2270789.html

Dr Manuel Pinto Coelho, President of the Association for a Drug Free Portugal, says decriminalisation has not worked
"Decriminalisation in Portugal was not a blessing. Decriminalisation didn't help us. It was decriminalisation that results like this? I don't know. It makes no sense that people say since decriminalisation drugs use fell in Portugal,"
For Dr Pinto Coelho, it shows that decriminalisation had not worked. "Kofi Annan said a very interesting thing - the eradication of drugs in our planet is a difficult task but we can go forward, we can go through it. Since decriminalisation in Portugal there was an increase in every single drug. In cannabis and cocaine and ecstasy and in HIV aids," he said.

Like I said there is never going to be a one size fits all soloution. Thankyou for the information.

Most of that will be down to cannabis being grown by criminals. That would be solved by taking it out of the hands of them and having the government regulate it.