Wind,
Here's an article on the topic that includes a handy chart of the rate of deaths by drug overdose for all of Europe. (As you can see, Portugal beats the hell out of most other EU and non EU countries in terms of low number of overdose deaths.)
There's plenty of countries in Europe that have death rates from drug use close to that of the US and there's literally a handful of states with drug overdoses so common it really throws the statistics off the charts. What shocked me was how high Utah landed on the list. Not at all surprised to find Oklahoma in the top (bottom?) 10 of the state's with the highest death by drug overdose.
https://www.statista.com/statistics...erning-death-rate-of-drug-overdose-in-the-us/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...anyone-dies-from-a-drug-overdose-in-portugal/
Been,
I think there's a number of factors at play, one of the counter intuitive things that happened as a result of decriminalization on the part of Portugal was that overall drug use actually decreased, especially among teens. When Portugal was debating this the more socially conservative types were claiming that as a result nearly everyone on the country would start indulging in illicit drug use and it would all spiral out of control. Clearly, the claims they made proved to be the opposite in reality.
Secondly, I think it's the type of drugs that people in the US use - much of that based on the simple reason of "access." Portugal has never really had much of a problem with "meth" and has largely avoided the "opiod" problem. When you look into the issues WV is having, and it is really, really bad there, it nearly all traces back not to "illegal" drugs, but rather is the product of "prescription" drugs. In many small towns, the only "pushers" around appear to be the town's doctors!
I can't find the article now, but I remember reading one last month that discussed that some "smallish" county in WV accounted for a larger volume of sales for opiod based prescription drugs (oxycodone, fentanyl, hydrocodone, etc.) than were sold in most, much larger states! WV accounts for 6 of the top 10 deaths by overdose of all counties in the US.
The town of Kermit,WV (Pop. 392) had a single pharmacy that received and sold some 9 Million Hydrocodone over a 2 yr period and it's not the only pharmacy in town. Based on population, that means that means some 11,500 pills per year, for every man, woman and child in that town!
But the people selling the hydrocodone and other prescription opiods into these communities in WV are pocketed profits that would be the envy of some Mexican Cartels. And why wouldn't it be? The cartels have to fight other cartels, fight the govt and pay lots of "soldiers" to keep profits flowing. The drug companies in the US not only don't have to fight anyone, the get their protection FROM the US Govt and can openly carry on their business of killing people with the blessing of the Govt.
Here's a good article from the Charleston Gazette on the subject.
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-h...0m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses
Due to the "War on Drugs" we now have some of the world's deadliest drugs on our streets, things like krokodil, flakka, nyaope, K2, bath salts and "spice." (Talk about another friggin stupid thing about how the war on drugs actually works: the DEA insists on calling "spice" - "synthetic marijuana" in an apparent effort to convince the public that "marijuana" is dangerous, even though there is nothing in spice which even resembles marijuana.) Portugal with its decriminalized approach has had virtually NONE of these drugs distributed within their country.
We're doing everything ass-backwards in this country in regard to drugs and it's killing us, both literally and figuratively. And now, from all apparent signs we're about to double down on this stupidity because there's now a few at the top of our Govt who are puritans at heart.
I guess we've got to keep those private prisons full though, now don't we Sessions? (Who just reversed the policy of the Feds stop using them due to the incredible amount of corruption tied to the private prison industry, which is another topic that all evidence points to as being a massive failure.
