Washington Post story casting major doubt on Portugal's drug legalization quotes mostly police and -- as is essentially always the case in drugs coverage -- fails to ask, much less attempt to answer, this question:
Is the cost to society -- law enforcement, racism, corruption, and more -- higher as a result of making drugs illegal than the problems listed in this piece of making them legal?
The War on (Some) Drugs is worse, but Big Journalism won't tell you that.
Thank you for the hint
It's pretty strange, drug use was decriminalised in 2001 but the article speaks more or less exclusively of the years after 2019, IT doesn't compare the numbers with other countries or takes other events (e.g. Corona) into account. Jumping timeframes and references.
Even the "12 year high" sound like very selective. Funny enough it is the success of the decriminalisation can possibly play a part in the increase. E.g, if there is a reduction any increase will look much bigger even when the absolute number stays lower than before.
Just shoddy 🤬​
Dan Gillmor
Claudius Link