Thread by @jfernandezochoa

Anyone exposed to the absolutely BS claims on Portugal’s decriminalisation model by Sh*berger should read M Szalavitz’s great thread below.
/
There’s a problem with the Portuguese model, though. And we should be clear about it. Cus we all deserve full decrim. 🧵

https://twitter.com/maiasz/status/1486446311549202435

Yes, coercive / punitive responses are a fraction of the decisions of the Dissuasion Commissions.

But still ~30%: Mand. treatment ~8%, surveillance ~19%, other sanctions ~1.3%.

The concept of ‘dissuasion’ at the heart of the 24-year-old model, is wrong & needs abolishing.

Moreover, the police have retained significant power to surveil & intervene in the lives of people who use drugs.

This power affects us all, ofc, but especially street-based, Black, Roma and migrant people in Portugal.

And it's not getting much better.

Portugal has received regular warnings regarding racist policing by the C of Europe’s Commissioner for HHRR.

Drug policy must stop feeding into the police’s arsenal for brutality.

Using or possessing drugs should *never* substantiate the involvement of police in our lives.

The PT model was a feat in a country marked by the trauma of Salazarismo, the hope of the Carnation Revolution, & a painful overdose death crisis.

24 years later, it needs amending. Not to make it more repressive, as suggested by tinfoil-hat academics. But more liberatory.

Finally, I wanna push back vs this idea that the ‘Portuguese model’ is a construct of the criminal legal system.

Yes, it's [partial] decrim but ALSO the massively important human & institutional infrastructure of care that expanded after 2001.

This is KEY.

And if we want to learn about the Portuguese model’s present & *more importantly* its future, we must turn to #CASO,@APDES1, @GATVIH, @aKosmicare, & many more. Incl beautiful mutual aid building post-prohibition on the daily <3

Big admiration for my Portuguese colleagues!

Erratum: That 8% isn’t ‘mandatory treatment’ in the sense that a lack of completion doesn’t lead to criminalisation. But it may lead to non-criminal sanctions (ex. a fine). Apologies for the confusion.

PS. Recommended viewing/reading:

+20 years of Portuguese drug policy - Developments, challenges and the quest for human rights - Rêgo et al. idpc.net/publications/2…

+ Is Decriminalisation Enough? Drug User Community Voices from Portugal - @INPUD inpud.net/en/decriminali…

+ A guerra às drogas é uma guerra contra as pessoas (in PT) - @aKosmicare

+ Drug Decriminalisation: Progress or Political Red Herring? - @INPUD inpud.net/en/drug-decrim…