Topic: Drug free in the Philippines - page 42. (Read 77887 times)

Popcorn,

I will return to this topic later in more indepth review, but for now, I have to say, that your view is full of personal bias, that completely disregard human lives. Sorry.

Indeed I see nothing wrong with substances themselves, but alot of wrong with human nature.

Like in Mexico or Afghanistan, whole industry headed by local warlords grew around drug making and distribution in Phillipines, creating parallel society, that distrups and debilitates state as a whole. That IS a problem.

Official figures state, that 1000 people per month die of injuries in this drug war. Not of usage itself mind you. In a ongoing street war for "territory".

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/12/asia/philippines-death-toll-drug-war/

Legalizing drugs is not the same as promoting them. If you want people to stay away from drugs, then you need to introduce better awareness. Identifying the drug users is one of the most important steps in this. And drug usage has declined in all the countries, where drugs were legalized.

Overall, this suggests that removing criminal penalties for personal drug possession did not cause an increase in levels of drug use. This tallies with a significant body of evidence from around the world that shows the enforcement of criminal drug laws has, at best, a marginal impact in deterring people from using drugs.17 18 19 There is essentially no relationship between the punitiveness of a country’s drug laws and its rates of drug use. Instead, drug use tends to rise and fall in line with broader cultural, social or economic trends.

Crime
 
Despite claims to the contrary,34 decriminalisation appears to have had a positive effect on crime. With its recategorisation of low-level drug possession as an administrative rather than criminal offence, decriminalisation inevitably produced a reduction in the number of people arrested and sent to criminal court for drug offences – from over 14,000 in the year 2000, to around 5,500-6,000 per year once the policy had come into effect.35 The proportion of drug-related offenders (defined as those who committed offences under the influence of drugs and/or to fund drug consumption) in the Portuguese prison population also declined, from 44% in 1999, to just under 21% in 2012.36
 
Additionally, decriminalisation does not appear to have caused an increase in crimes typically associated with drugs. While opportunistic thefts and robberies had gone up when measured in 2004, it has been suggested that this may have been because police were able to use the time saved by no longer arresting drug users to tackle (and record) other low-level crimes.37 Although difficult to test, this theory is perhaps supported by the fact that, during the same period, there was a reduction in recorded cases of other, more complex crimes typically committed by people who are dependent on drugs, such as thefts from homes and businesses.

Homicides
 
A widely repeated claim is that, as a result of Portugal’s decriminalisation policy, drug-related homicides increased 40% between 2001 and 2006.29 30 But this claim is based on a misrepresentation of the evidence. The 40% increase (from 105 to 148) was for all homicides, defined as any ‘intentional killing of a person, including murder, manslaughter, euthanasia and infanticide’31 – they were not ‘drug-related’. In fact, there are no data collected for drug-related homicides.
 
This claim stems from the 2009 World Drug Report, in which the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime speculated that the increase in homicides ‘might be related to [drug] trafficking.’32 However, neither the UNODC nor anyone else has proposed a causal mechanism by which the decriminalisation policy could have produced this rise, and given that the policy did not include any changes to how drug trafficking offences were dealt with, the possibility of such a link seems highly implausible. Furthermore, Portugal’s homicide rate has since declined to roughly what it was in 2002.3

Deaths
 
Some have argued that, since 2001, drug-related deaths in Portugal either remained constant or actually increased.26 However, these claims are based on the number of people who died with traces of any illicit drug in their body, rather than the number of people who died as a result of the use of an illicit drug.27
 
Given an individual can die with traces of drugs in their body without this being the cause of their death, it is the second number – derived from clinical assessments made by physicians, rather than post-mortem toxicological tests – that is the standard, internationally accepted measure of drug-related deaths. And according to this measure, deaths due to drug use have decreased significantly – from approximately 80 in 2001, to 16 in 2012.28

Health
 
It has been claimed that the prevalence of drug-related infectious diseases rose after decriminalisation,20 yet this is strongly contradicted by the evidence. Although the number of newly diagnosed HIV cases among people who inject drugs in Portugal is well above the European average,21 it has declined dramatically over the past decade, falling from 1,016 to 56 between 2001 and 2012.22 Over the same period, the number of new cases of AIDS among people who inject drugs also decreased, from 568 to 38.23 A similar, downward trend has been observed for cases of Hepatitis C and B among clients of drug treatment centres,24 despite an increase in the number of people seeking treatment.25

Portugal decriminalised the use of all drugs in 2001.

Weed, cocaine, heroin, you name it — Portugal decided to treat possession and use of small quantities of these drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. The drugs were still illegal, of course. But now getting caught with them meant a small fine and maybe a referral to a treatment program — not jail time and a criminal record.

Among Portuguese adults, there are 3 drug overdose deaths for every 1,000,000 citizens. Comparable numbers in other countries range from 10.2 per million in the Netherlands to 44.6 per million in the UK, all the way up to 126.8 per million in Estonia. The EU average is 17.3 per million.


Drug use and drug deaths are complicated phenomena. They have many underlying causes. Portugal's low death rate can't be attributable solely to decriminalisation. As Dr. Joao Goulao, the architect of the country's decriminalization policy, has said, "it's very difficult to identify a causal link between decriminalisation by itself and the positive tendencies we have seen."

Still, it's very clear that decriminalisation hasn't had the severe consequences that its opponents predicted. As the Transform Drug Policy Institute says in its analysis of Portugal's drug laws, "The reality is that Portugal’s drug situation has improved significantly in several key areas. Most notably, HIV infections and drug-related deaths have decreased, while the dramatic rise in use feared by some has failed to materialise."

Just look too the disadvantage of it.How you know that drug users will come out?And if that happens drug users use drugs in public and children will see it and if you have children you can explain to them what they doing?And how do you know that government can monitor them?And the government want their country called as drugs users sanctuary.I didn't know why you promoting drugs to legalize.

Why don't you look at the advantages of decriminalization? The drug users will come out of the closet and the government will be able to monitor them. This will reduce the number of deaths from drug overdose and HIV infections.

yes you are correct, but what im saying is that using drugs is not common here in our country, so other people will be curious about it so they will try it and eventually after days they will be regular users and become addiction. that the example of what im saying. my points is when illegal drugs will become legalized, then it will be unusual, so many people will now dont need to try it for they can always ask for the users on what they felt about it.

the reality here in the philippines is that if you are rich, you can always have a lawyer to protect you from the accusations. you can go under trials and other things just to make yourself inocent. while if you are poor, you have no right to justify yourself. you will be in the prison that fast. or even if you are rich and get to prison, you will have a special treatment like you are just in a 5 star hotel.

You are right, however we really can't say that the economy will grow if there were no more addicts because we need job and that is why drug pushers becomes pushers because they can't find a job and aside from that i dont wan our president to run like hitler.


  Hitler kills innocent people and i don't want that president DU30 would do that

War on drugs in my country (Philippines) is a big step to my country but they are some narco politicians and some supporters of previous administration is want to dissolve it.And now they are winning with the help of bias media.

Our president must push through the penalties for those who are drug addicts, criminals, and other who have done wrong things. If our President be like Hitler, criminals will be afraid on doing wrong things, crimes or even drug addicts will stop. We should know what will be the effects on our economy if there is no drug addicts and criminals. This can lead our economy to grow and can compete to the other big countries.

Lesser penalties also mean that this could be taking advantage. People just continue to use and sell and kill each other because they arent afraid anymore of the penalties so obviously it becomes useless in the first place

Legalizing drugs and decriminalizing them isn't the same

Decriminalization means it's still illegal however with lesser penalites

It is really a heart breaking every time you heard about that bad news.
Duterte and his cabinet members are really doing great but sad to say that there are other politicians especially senators who just want the president to down. Instead of lifting him up and helping him, what they do is they discredit him by his past actions. They just don't allow him to do what he must supposed to do.

True! I would rather happy if the news is about a drug addict person being killed in police operation rather than a 7y/o girl or a 70y/o granny raped and killed by drug addict. For me Duterte is doing well to cleanse the country from drugs and corruption.

It is really hard for now to know the politician that you can trust to, there are some politician that I think won't do corruption and that will never involve in drug transactions. But, they did. I hope that we can eliminate those pests in the government, just hoping that police will help the current administration and not to sabotage.

Those who are involve in drug business must be eliminated, all of us should know who they are, and not condemned them. We must know who will you trust on and who will be the one to vote for, to eliminate those drug protecting politicians. Local government and officials must point those who are involve with this drug pushers. We first eliminate those officials before we eliminate those drug addicts, because, when there is no supply of drugs, then drug addicts cannot provide their own drugs.

yes it could be that generals or some government officials you protects the drug lord. only  big people can protect them like higher ranks on government. but  you will always think that people still vote for that kind of people. voting the wrong people as an officials of governemnt. we should pick the right people who will be sat in the governemnt like senators and such. we must eliminate the vote buying system for our country as it is the root of corruption and illegal things.

its should be those generals who's protecting the pushers and all the drug lords I guess it was them who's really making this ejk since that they don't want to be named by the addicts and pushers's now they using their hitman to keep killing those small time dealer who's involved selling their goods, its a big fight for the Press and PNP chief.

We cannot eliminate does drug addicts if there is always a new drug pusher. We should first eliminate those drug pushers before drug addicts to be eliminated. Those kind of drug pushers are the one who is working with the local governments, others are on their cabinet, we should eliminate those person who has negative knowledge, and those who are dealing with drugs.