In The Wire (perhaps the best television program ever), a rogue Baltimore police major essentially legalizes drugs in certain parts of his district. The result: crime falls, public health agencies start treating drug addicts and offering preventive care/education, the police focus on serious crimes, and the accolades roll in from the public.
In the real world, drug legalization is about as popular with public officials as vegetables are with 4 year olds! But a few bold experiments with decriminalization have taken place, including one in Portugal that began in 2001. What have been the results? As the Boston Globe explains:
Faced with both a public health crisis and a public relations disaster, Portugal’s elected officials took a bold step. They decided to decriminalize the possession of all illicit drugs — from marijuana to heroin — but continue to impose criminal sanctions on distribution and trafficking. The goal: easing the burden on the nation’s criminal justice system and improving the people’s overall health by treating addiction as an illness, not a crime.
As the sweeping reforms went into effect nine years ago, some in Portugal prepared themselves for the worst. They worried that the country would become a junkie nirvana, that many neighborhoods would soon resemble Casal Ventoso, and that tourists would come to Portugal for one reason only: to get high.
But nearly a decade later, there’s evidence that Portugal’s great drug experiment not only didn’t blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years. Life in Casal Ventoso, Lisbon’s troubled neighborhood, has improved.
As one might expect, not everything has been rosy:
The number of Portuguese aged 15 to 64 who have ever tried illegal drugs has climbed from 7.8 percent in 2001 to 12 percent in 2007.
Despite the down side (assuming that such experimentation is a down side), the Portuguese approach looks like a positive improvement over the current American drug policy regime. As you might expect, the Cato Institute has been following this case too. Here is a “White Paper” by Glenn Greenwald on Portugal’s experiment; it contains a lot of interesting data worth examining.
PILEUS 
The thing I don’t understand about decriminalization is that it doesn’t seem to address the distribution problem that causes all the black-market crime. Sure, decriminalizing drug possession is a humanitarian measure that should be supported on those grounds, but if demand goes up while the war on supply remains, the black-market profits problem would seem to get only worse. If the government is offering cheap, supervised distribution of drugs to addicts, as Switzerland has been doing, then I can see how that kind of program would cut off the gangs’ profits.
You are absolutely right Jason. Decriminalization is only a humanitarian measure – not a real solution to the problems posed/created by prohibition. It is a start, not an end to the creation of a workable drug policy.
I would question the value of further medicalizing what are essentially failures of will.
I would question criminalizing what is in essence a victimless act.