Portugal Drug Policies

• Decriminalized public and private use and possession of all drugs in the year 2001

  • Possession of up to 10 daily doses of a drug

• Main purpose was to reduce the amount of HIV/AIDS Infections

• The police refer drug users to a “CDT” (Comissões para a Dissuasão da Toxicodependência)

  • The “CDT” consists of three Persons, including social workers, legal advisors and medical professionals
  • main purposes is to dissuade the use of drugs
  • The CDT can use sanctions such as community service, fines, suspension of professional licenses and bans on attending designated places

• Drug use slightly rose on adult populations

  • Lifetime cannabis use increased slightly from 7.6% (2001) to 11.7% (2007)
  • This mirrors drug increases in other countries such as Italy and Spain

Resources/news/2010_Caitlin_211621_1.pdf

Results

Reduction of Drug related Deaths from 369 (2001) to 152 (2003) which is related to the increased amount of people who entered substitution treatment (Tavares et al. 2005). Those numbers have climbed in later years but that increase could also be related to a doubling of toxicological autopsies being performed.