{"id":1762,"date":"2011-07-14T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/portugal-as-forerunner-for-us-states-repealing-drug-prohibition.html"},"modified":"2011-07-14T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T12:00:00","slug":"portugal-as-forerunner-for-us-states-repealing-drug-prohibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/portugal-as-forerunner-for-us-states-repealing-drug-prohibition.html","title":{"rendered":"Portugal as forerunner for U.S. states repealing drug prohibition"},"content":{"rendered":"If Portugal can do it, Washington state or even Georgia can do it.\n

\nFor comparison:\n\n<\/a>\n\n
Population<\/td><\/tr>\n
Portugal<\/td>\n10.632 million<\/td><\/tr>\n
Washington (U.S.)<\/td>6.664 million<\/a><\/td><\/tr>\n
Georgia (U.S.)<\/td>9.829 million<\/a><\/td><\/tr>\n
California (U.S.)<\/td>36.962 million<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\nSo\n\nPortugal, which has successfully decriminalized drugs<\/a>,\nis similar in scale to a mid-sized U.S. state.\nSomewhat bigger than\n\nWashington state<\/a>, which just almost got marijuana decriminalization\non a ballot, and of whose voters almost a majority support it.\nWith a little more work, people against prohibition could get\nWashington to be the first state to end marijuana prohibition.\nToo bad they’re not going for\n\nall drugs, like Portugal did<\/a>,\nbut marijuana offences account probably for the most drug-related lockups,\nso that’s a good place to start.\nStill, the problem won’t be solved until the drug cartels\nand the prison-industrial-complex are deprived of their drug-related income\nby legalizing the rest, and taxing them so states derive income from them.\n

\nMeanwhile we could refuse to participate by declining a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia, and spending that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Portugal can do it, Washington state or even Georgia can do it. For comparison: Population Portugal 10.632 million Washington (U.S.)6.664 million Georgia (U.S.)9.829 million California (U.S.)36.962 million So Portugal, which has successfully decriminalized drugs, is similar in scale to a mid-sized U.S. state. Somewhat bigger than Washington state, which just almost got marijuana decriminalization […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,202,1113,48,40,2,72,20,178],"tags":[1487,8817,8705,4119,8701,3332,4118,7,81,2123,2708,79,2712,8749,82,1716],"class_list":["post-1762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-cca","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-government","category-incarceration","category-law","category-vlcia","tag-ballot","tag-cca","tag-education","tag-elway","tag-georgia","tag-hemp","tag-initative","tag-lowndes-county","tag-marijuana","tag-poll","tag-portugal","tag-prohibition","tag-rehabilitation","tag-vlcia","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-washington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-sq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}