How would decriminalization affect young drug users?
Young people already have very easy access to drugs like marijuana. I do not think we would see an increase the use of marijuana among young people. It may increase the use among older people, but not among younger people. Drug use in Portugal has fallen since 2001, and it has been suggested that it is due to decriminalization and strong preventive policies. Do you think it is a solution? Why? Yes, Portugal is a very good model. And it is good, because for many years, we mostly talked about the Netherlands and Switzerland as models. And it’s good to see that Portugal has really shown some leadership in the decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs, in a public health approach. How do you see the decline in drug use in Portugal? When people point out that drug use and misuse has actually declined in Portugal it reminds me of what happened in the Netherlands. The Dutch pointed out that, when they decriminalized marijuana, they succeeded in making cannabis boring. It stopped b
