America - The Official Thread

[polysmut]

Heroin is illegal in Portugal, as per my article previously linked.
It’s not legal hence has not been decriminalized.

A lot of times people are conflating the meaning of terms with “how they think about it in their heads”. I haven’t seen that from you, but many here do that with almost every posting, just trying to help them think a bit more clearly.

Legalised and decriminalised are two words often used in drug conversations.
The way I understand it, though I haven't actually checked, legalised is used when something is no longer illegal and decriminalised is used when it is agreed that punishment or possibly even arrest won't be used.

 

[Scaff]

Heroin is illegal in Portugal, as per my article previously linked.
It’s not legal hence has not been decriminalized.
FWIW Portugal’s practice is almost the same as that of the American city st the end of the Seattle is dying video I previously linked that so many here haven’t bothered to look at.
I previously said that was my favorite part of the video. But a bunch of posters responded with gotchas that contradicted actual fact.
It’s illegal to drink and drive, so that is what it is.
A lot of times people are conflating the meaning of terms with “how they think about it in their heads”. I haven’t seen that from you, but many here do that with almost every posting, just trying to help them think a bit more clearly.
For the record I support what the city at the end of the Seattle is dying video does and I support Portugal’s actions. In both instances the drugs in question like heroin are illegal.



Yes.

The decriminalisation in Portugal is in all effect the exact same as decriminalisation, as such that line doesn’t debunk anything at all.

What Portugal does is show that going down either route does not lead to the hellscape your have claimed, and they have had close to two decades to soak test it.

Rehab is more effective, use is down, deaths are down. As such your use of semantics seems to come not from an impartial look at the facts, but a desire for confirmation bias.

 

[Groundfish]

The decriminalisation in Portugal is in all effect the exact same as decriminalisation, as such that line doesn’t debunk anything at all

Well, I went to an article in which the drug czar of Portugal explained what they do and why it’s very important NOT to de criminalize (make legal) heroin use.
They arrest folks possessing it because it hasn’t been decriminalized there.
They are forced to go to rehab or pay a fine as well as going before a panel of psychologists. So, there’s consequences, punishments, all aspects just like the city in the video.
You can’t say it’s been decriminalized OR the fact that it’s illegal equals decriminalization because in fact it does not.

Rehab is more effective

Yes, it is, and since my first comments on this subject I’ve pointed to a video about that in which a rehab program showed 94 percent success.
I’m talking about facts I presented but no one paid any attention to, they are too busy playing “kick the non libertarian”
We are in agreement. I tried to tell you.

 

[Scaff]

Well, I went to an article in which the drug czar of Portugal explained what they do and why it’s very important NOT to de criminalize (make legal) heroin use.
They arrest folks possessing it because it hasn’t been decriminalized there.
They are forced to go to rehab or pay a fine as well as going before a panel of psychologists. So, there’s consequences, punishments, all aspects just like the city in the video.
You can’t say it’s been decriminalized OR the fact that it’s illegal equals decriminalization because in fact it does not.

And your quote mining of that was also pointed out!

Yes, it is, and since my first comments on this subject I’ve pointed to a video about that in which a rehab program showed 94 percent success.
We are in agreement. I tried to tell you.

I’m talking about in conjunction with legalisation or decriminalisation, and the last time I checked you were not in agreement with that.

 

[UKMikey]

I'm not sure why the Portuguese drug tzar would argue against his own policy. This is the opening paragraph of the article which @Groundfish posted.

Goulão is Portugal’s director-general of drug policy and the architect of its radical approach, which included decriminalizing all drugs for personal use.

At no stage in the article does he say decriminalisation is a bad idea while it's accompanied by a robust rehabilitation programme. This is because that's exactly what they've done.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/america-the-official-thread.54029/page-893#post-13238689

 

[Groundfish]

Portugal

1. Drug possession carries up to 14 year prison sentence.
2. If caught with drugs for personal use you are arrested
3. After arrest you are subject to forced interviews from the Drug Dissuaders
4. You are subject to fines
5. If you cannot pay the fines your possessions will be taken from you
5.5 You are forced into rehab
6. If people see you doing it public they call the police-no open air use or sales

7. According to some here this means Portugal decriminalized all drugs and the policy is lauded as a success

8. I’m saying it’s still illegal-it hasn’t been decriminalized

9. Those who disagree are claiming if something’s illegal it has been decriminalized????

 

[Scaff]

Portugal

1. Drug possession carries up to 14 year prison sentence.
2. If caught with drugs for personal use you are arrested
3. After arrest you are subject to forced interviews from the Drug Dissuaders
4. You are subject to fines
5. If you cannot pay the fines your possessions will be taken from you
5.5 You are forced into rehab
6. If people see you doing it public they call the police-no open air use or sales

7. According to some here this means Portugal decriminalized all drugs and the policy is lauded as a success

8. I’m saying it’s still illegal-it hasn’t been decriminalized

9. Those who disagree are claiming if something’s illegal it has been decriminalized????

View attachment 959508

Seriously you are flogging a dead horse in terms of being utterly wrong and quote mining to death on this on.

“Portugal decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs in 2001. This means that, while it is no longer a criminal offence to possess drugs for personal use, it is still an administrative violation, punishable by penalties such as fines or community service. The specific penalty to be applied is decided by ‘Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction’, which are regional panels made up of legal, health and social work professionals. In reality, the vast majority of those referred to the commissions by the police have their cases ‘suspended’, effectively meaning they receive no penalty.1 People who are dependent on drugs are encouraged to seek treatment, but are rarely sanctioned if they choose not to – the commissions’ aim is for people to enter treatment voluntarily; they do not attempt to force them to do so.2”

https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight/

They have decriminalised drugs in Portugal and your repeated quote mining and semantics do not change that fact.

Nor does it change the fact that combined with the health driven focus they moved to it has had a positive effect overall on the countries drug problems. The only issue here is your own confirmation bias.

It’s an administrative offence (think civil law not criminal) that is very, very rarely enforced.

It’s described in every reference, including the US Library of Congress (see below) as decriminalisation.

“Law 30/2000, adopted in November 2000 but in place since July 2001, decriminalised consumption, acquisition and possession of drugs for personal consumption.”
https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/countries/drug-reports/2019/portugal/drug-laws-and-drug-law-offences_en

“n 1999, after the approval of a national strategy to combat drugs and drug addiction, the Portuguese government issued Law No. 30/2000, which decriminalized the acquisition, possession, and use of specified plants, substances, or preparations for a person’s own consumption, and turned such conduct into misdemeanors. Law No. 30/2000 created a Commission for Drug Dissuasion for the processing of these misdemeanors and the application of sanctions, which is regulated by Decree-Law No. 130-A/2001. To further implement the strategy, the government in 2001 enacted Decree-Law No. 183, which approved a general system of prevention policies, risk reduction, and minimization of harm that created programs and public health structures for increasing awareness and providing for the referral of drug addicts for treatment.”
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/decriminalization-of-narcotics/portugal.php

 

[Tornado]

It's funny that Portugal went from some being irrelevant backwater country who can't be compared to the US to now it being insisted that they didn't actually do what they did nearly 20 years ago.

 

[UKMikey]

I apologise for the pile on but this is getting bloody ridiculous.

According to some here this means Portugal decriminalized all drugs and the policy is lauded as a success

According to the article you posted, yes. You're arguing against your own source.

Those who disagree are claiming if something’s illegal it has been decriminalized????

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6181739/#

Page 3:

Legalization of cannabis is the process of removing all legal prohibitions against it. Cannabis would then be available to the adult general population for purchase and use at will, similar to tobacco and alcohol. Decriminalization is the act of removing criminal sanctions against an act, article, or behavior. Decriminalization of cannabis means it would remain illegal, but the legal system would not prosecute a person for possession under a specified amount.

 

[Groundfish]

Seriously you are flogging a dead horse in terms of being utterly wrong and quote mining to death on this on.

“Portugal decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs in 2001. This means that, while it is no longer a criminal offence to possess drugs for personal use, it is still an administrative violation, punishable by penalties such as fines or community service. The specific penalty to be applied is decided by ‘Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction’, which are regional panels made up of legal, health and social work professionals. In reality, the vast majority of those referred to the commissions by the police have their cases ‘suspended’, effectively meaning they receive no penalty.1 People who are dependent on drugs are encouraged to seek treatment, but are rarely sanctioned if they choose not to – the commissions’ aim is for people to enter treatment voluntarily; they do not attempt to force them to do so.2”

https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight/

They have decriminalised drugs in Portugal and your repeated quote mining and semantics do not change that fact.

Nor does it change the fact that combined with the health driven focus they moved to it has had a positive effect overall on the countries drug problems. The only issue here is your own confirmation bias.

It’s an administrative offence (think civil law not criminal) that is very, very rarely enforced.

It’s described in every reference, including the US Library of Congress (see below) as decriminalisation.

“Law 30/2000, adopted in November 2000 but in place since July 2001, decriminalised consumption, acquisition and possession of drugs for personal consumption.”
https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/countries/drug-reports/2019/portugal/drug-laws-and-drug-law-offences_en

“n 1999, after the approval of a national strategy to combat drugs and drug addiction, the Portuguese government issued Law No. 30/2000, which decriminalized the acquisition, possession, and use of specified plants, substances, or preparations for a person’s own consumption, and turned such conduct into misdemeanors. Law No. 30/2000 created a Commission for Drug Dissuasion for the processing of these misdemeanors and the application of sanctions, which is regulated by Decree-Law No. 130-A/2001. To further implement the strategy, the government in 2001 enacted Decree-Law No. 183, which approved a general system of prevention policies, risk reduction, and minimization of harm that created programs and public health structures for increasing awareness and providing for the referral of drug addicts for treatment.”
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/decriminalization-of-narcotics/portugal.php

Lol you post links to pro drug use sites?

This is from the Vancouver Times, drugs remain illegal in Portugal as of this article.
In the article the head of Portugal’s drug policy explains that drugs remain illegal and further explains the punishments for drug possession and use.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/vancou...wcm/d4e049f8-c1c4-4a4c-805c-b7b4d4eb3b51/amp/

So, why is it part of the title “most don’t understand drugs are still illegal?

There’s no way around it being illegal, no matter how much you want something to be a certain way.
Reality is ILLEGAL

 

[UKMikey]

Lol you post links to pro drug use sites?
This is from the Vancouver Times, drugs remain illegal in Portugal as of this article.
In the article the head of Portugal’s drug policy explains that drugs remain illegal and further explains the punishments for drug possession and use.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/vancou...wcm/d4e049f8-c1c4-4a4c-805c-b7b4d4eb3b51/amp/
So, why is it part of the title “most don’t understand drugs are still illegal?
There’s no way around it being illegal, no matter how much you want something to be a certain way.
Reality is ILLEGAL

No one is arguing that drugs aren't illegal in Portugal. They're illegal, it's just that users are sent to rehab, instead of jail when caught. Not sure how this is so difficult to understand when your own article explains it clearly.

I invite anyone else who's still interested in this conversation to read @Groundfish's article and see if they reach the same conclusions @Scaff and I have.

To repeat: nowhere in the article does it say that drugs haven't been decriminalised. Decriminalisation and legalisation aren't the same thing.

 

[Scaff]

Lol you post links to pro drug use sites?

This is from the Vancouver Times, drugs remain illegal in Portugal as of this article.
In the article the head of Portugal’s drug policy explains that drugs remain illegal and further explains the punishments for drug possession and use.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/vancou...wcm/d4e049f8-c1c4-4a4c-805c-b7b4d4eb3b51/amp/

So, why is it part of the title “most don’t understand drugs are still illegal?

There’s no way around it being illegal, no matter how much you want something to be a certain way.
Reality is ILLEGAL

I cite the US Library of Congress and the EU, exactly when did they become a pro drug websites!

Your into outright nonsense now.

 

[TexRex]

Lol you post links to pro drug use sites?

Library of Congress is now a pro-drug site, folks.

This is from the Vancouver Times, drugs remain illegal in Portugal as of this article.
In the article the head of Portugal’s drug policy explains that drugs remain illegal and further explains the punishments for drug possession and use.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/vancou...wcm/d4e049f8-c1c4-4a4c-805c-b7b4d4eb3b51/amp/

So, why is it part of the title “most don’t understand drugs are still illegal?

There’s no way around it being illegal, no matter how much you want something to be a certain way.

Decriminalization ≠ Legalization

Christ on a bike. Just how dense are you? Are you also one of those special people who insists videogames make children violent?

Reality is ILLEGAL

*snort*

 

[Scaff]

Library of Congress is now a pro-drug site, folks.

And the EU!

 

[Groundfish]

If something’s illegal, then it hasn’t been decriminalized.

Have a nice day

 

[UKMikey]

Library of Congress is now a pro-drug site, folks.

And the EU!

Not to mention the Missouri State Medical Association.

If something’s illegal, then it hasn’t been decriminalized.

None of the above sources agree with you, and you can't provide one of your own that does.

 

[Liquid]

If something’s illegal, then it hasn’t been decriminalized.

Have a nice day

Criminal law and civil law are two different things.

 

[Scaff]

If something’s illegal, then it hasn’t been decriminalized.

Have a nice day

So you carry more legal weight on the matter than the EU, UN and Library of Congress?

I think we know the answer to that, it’s already been repeatedly explained and your semantics and confirmation bias is reaching absurd levels now.

 

[TexRex]

If something’s illegal, then it hasn't been decriminalized.

Decriminalization is the lessening of criminal penalties in relation to certain acts, perhaps retroactively, though perhaps regulated permits or fines might still apply.

...

This should be contrasted with legalization, which removes all or most legal detriments from a previously illegal act.

Have a nice day

Trumpism, man.

 

[McLaren]

Seriously you are flogging a dead horse in terms of being utterly wrong and quote mining to death on this on.

This is more like just pounding the dirt. The horse decomposed long ago & the bones have been beaten into pieces.

 

[huskeR32]

Criminal law and civil law are two different things.

You looked like your avatar when you posted this, didn't you?

 

[Danoff]

Not understanding the law seems to go hand in hand with wanting to enforce law against "leftists".

 

[UKMikey]

It's terrible when everyone else including documented official sources and the newspaper article you yourself quote are all part of an echo chamber which disagrees with you.

Perhaps he's trying to argue that unlike Portugal, Seattle legalised weed and that this is somehow the cause of all the state's problems despite cannabis being legalised in other states which don't have those problems?

... No, that doesn't make sense either.

 

[Scaff]

It's terrible when everyone else including documented official sources and the newspaper article you yourself quote are all part of an echo chamber which disagrees with you.

Perhaps he's trying to argue that unlike Portugal, Seattle legalised weed and that this is somehow the cause of all the state's problems despite cannabis being legalised in other states which don't have those problems?

... No, that doesn't make sense either.

Maybe it’s a Marxist plot, after all Portugal does have a Democratic Socialist government ( even though they are different things)?

 

[UKMikey]

Maybe it’s a Marxist plot, after all Portugal does have a Democratic Socialist government ( even though they are different things)?

They're probably also libertarians in their spare time and at weekends.

Perhaps the echo chamber is locked and made of steel and the conspiracists occupy some kind of quantum superposition on the political compass just like light is both a wave and a particle until the act of observation collapses it into one state or the other. Schrödinger's leftist right-wing libertarians, flogging a horse which is both alive and dead.

... And that's as much self indulgence as I'm going to get into for now.

 

[Biggles]

There's no way Republicans would support appointing a SCOTUS justice in an election year! Right?

2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

2018, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”

2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term - I would say that if it was a Republican president.”

2016, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.): “The very balance of our nation’s highest court is in serious jeopardy. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will do everything in my power to encourage the president and Senate leadership not to start this process until we hear from the American people.”

2016, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”

2016, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.): “The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.”

2016, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.): “In this election year, the American people will have an opportunity to have their say in the future direction of our country. For this reason, I believe the vacancy left open by Justice Antonin Scalia should not be filled until there is a new president.”

2016, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.): “The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court justice until we have a new president.”

2016, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Col.): “I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”

2016, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio): “I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations. This wouldn’t be unusual. It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.”

2016, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.”

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
Mitch McConnell, March 2016

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

How far we have come...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

They're probably also libertarians in their spare time and at weekends.

Perhaps the echo chamber is locked and made of steel and the conspiracists occupy some kind of quantum superposition on the political compass just like light is both a wave and a particle until the act of observation collapses it into one state or the other. Schrödinger's leftist right-wing libertarians, flogging a horse which is both alive and dead.

... And that's as much self indulgence as I'm going to get into for now.

 

[Joey D]

They're probably also libertarians in their spare time and at weekends.

He's not Richard, but he is Richard's Portuguese cousin! Introducing Ricardo o Libertário.

 

[NotThePrez]

Sugar.

Extremely off-topic, but this was my first thought when seeing this post earlier today: