{"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":"<p>If Portugal can do it, Washington state or even Georgia can do it.<\/p>\n<p>\nFor comparison:<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/07\/portugal-ends-drug-prohibition-and-addiction-declines.html\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/5\/5c\/Flag_of_Portugal.svg\/225px-Flag_of_Portugal.svg.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td colspan=2>Population<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Portugal<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&#038;met_y=sp_pop_totl&#038;idim=country:PRT&#038;dl=en&#038;hl=en&#038;q=population+portugal\"><br \/>\n10.632 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Washington (U.S.)<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/publicdata\/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#038;met_y=population&#038;idim=state:53000&#038;dl=en&#038;hl=en&#038;q=population+washington+state\">6.664 million<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Georgia (U.S.)<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/publicdata\/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#038;met_y=population&#038;idim=state:53000&#038;dl=en&#038;hl=en&#038;q=population+washington+state\">9.829 million<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>California (U.S.)<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/publicdata\/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&#038;met_y=population&#038;idim=state:53000&#038;dl=en&#038;hl=en&#038;q=population+washington+state#ctype=l&#038;strail=false&#038;nselm=h&#038;met_y=population&#038;scale_y=lin&#038;ind_y=false&#038;rdim=state&#038;idim=state:53000:13000:06000&#038;hl=en&#038;dl=en\">36.962 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>So<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/07\/portugal-ends-drug-prohibition-and-addiction-declines.html\"><br \/>\nPortugal, which has successfully decriminalized drugs<\/a>,<br \/>\nis similar in scale to a mid-sized U.S. state.<br \/>\nSomewhat bigger than<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/07\/license-and-tax-marijuana-washington-state-poll.html\"><br \/>\nWashington state<\/a>, which just almost got marijuana decriminalization<br \/>\non a ballot, and of whose voters almost a majority support it.<br \/>\nWith a little more work, people against prohibition could get<br \/>\nWashington to be the first state to end marijuana prohibition.<br \/>\nToo bad they&#8217;re not going for<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/07\/portugal-ends-drug-prohibition-and-addiction-declines.html\"><br \/>\nall drugs, like Portugal did<\/a>,<br \/>\nbut marijuana offences account probably for the most drug-related lockups,<br \/>\nso that&#8217;s a good place to start.<br \/>\nStill, the problem won&#8217;t be solved until the drug cartels<br \/>\nand the prison-industrial-complex are deprived of their drug-related income<br \/>\nby legalizing the rest, and taxing them so states derive income from them.<\/p>\n<p>\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.<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"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"],"_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}]}}