Is Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization a Failure or Success? The Answer Isn’t So Simple

In this article, Wharton adjunct professor of management and senior fellow at Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management Gregory Shea breaks down the unraveling of Portugal’s controversial drug policy, updating prior insights into organizational change from a case study in his book with Cassie Solomon, Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work.
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n 1999, Lisbon carried the moniker of the “heroin capital of Europe.” Consequential diseases such as HIV infection reached an all-time high in 2000, with 104.2 new cases per million people. A multi-partisan party coalition backed sweeping and coordinated change. Portugal redefined the problem of addiction and correspondingly envisioned a very different approach to addressing it compared to other countries, an approach that de facto followed the change model presented in Leading Successful Change.First and foremost: Portugal defined addiction as an illness. Second, Portugal eliminated the distinction between hard and soft drugs. Third, Portugal concentrated on an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs and the likely accompanying frayed connections between the addict, others, and the world at large.
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By 2018, Portugal’s number of heroin addicts had dropped from 100,000 to 25,000. Portugal had the lowest drug-related death rate in Western Europe, one-tenth of Britain and one-fiftieth of the U.S. HIV infections from drug use injection had declined 90%
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The number of Portuguese adults who reported prior use of illicit adult drugs rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12.8% in 2022 — still below European averages but a significant rise nonetheless. Overdose rates now stand at a 12-year high and have doubled in Lisbon since 2019. Crime, often seen as at least loosely related to illegal drug addiction, rose 14% just from 2021 to 2022. Sewage samples of cocaine and ketamine rank among the highest in Europe (with weekend spikes) and drug encampments have appeared along with a European rarity: private security forces.

Criminality in Portugal - The Organized Crime Index

 

Portugal is primarily a destination country for human trafficking, with labour exploitation being the most prevalent form of this crime. However, it also plays a key role as a transit country, particularly on the Latin America route, predominantly from Brazil to Europe. Cases of human trafficking are believed to be significantly under-reported. Most of the minor victims are boys from Romania, who are primarily exploited for adoption, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, begging or sexual exploitation. 

The majority of adult victims are men from developing countries, particularly African countries. In this context, Portugal usually serves as a transit country for the West Africa route in which victims obtain fraudulent documents before moving on to other European countries where they are frequently subjected to sexual exploitation. The continuance of human trafficking in Portugal is enabled by inadequate victim identification, the ongoing illicit practices of temporary employment and recruitment agencies, and the pervasiveness of false promises made to victims. Transnational criminal networks, particularly those from Eastern Europe, are the main players involved in this activity, and both domestic and foreign actors profit from it.

Human smuggling is also a prevalent criminal market in Portugal. People from countries in Southern Asia, such as India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and Eastern Europe, such as Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria, as well as Latin America and West Africa, are increasingly smuggled into the country to be exploited in various sectors, mainly agriculture and hospitality. 

Criminal actors, including domestic and transnational networks, use sea or air routes as transit platforms. Balkan criminal networks use national airports to convey people irregularly into Portugal. The El Jadida–Faro sea route is used to avoid controls carried out by Moroccan authorities and the Canary Islands are increasingly being targeted along the West African route. A significant rise in document fraud connected to border controls has been detected.

Historically, the extortion and protection racketeering market has been pervasive in the country, especially in the north, usually involving biker gangs. However, recent evidence has been scarce and major events related to this crime are no longer common. Nevertheless, extortion is still occurring in the country and the latest reports indicate the moderate involvement of foreign actors too.

in Organized Crime Index

 

Portugal is increasingly at the bottom of Europe in the ranking of quality of elites

 

Conclusion of the index developed by FEP and the University of St. Gallen, in which Portugal is in 30th place among 151 countries analysed.

The School of Economics and Management of the University of Porto (FEP) and the University of Saint Gallen (Switzerland), in collaboration with an international network of partners and academic institutions, have just launched the fourth edition of the Elites Quality Index (EQx) 2023, an international political economy ranking that provides a unique perspective on value creation, categorising countries by the quality of their elites.

Among the 151 countries analysed in this study, Portugal appears in 30th position, degrading its position in the global index (in 2022 it occupied 22nd position) and increasingly below the European Union average, in a year marked by an unprecedented rise in inflation and war in Europe.

The index is based on 134 indicators and on four conceptual areas – economic power, economic value, political power and political value – categorising elites into “very high quality” (position from 1 to 10), “high quality elites” (position from 11 to 25), “quality elites” (position from 26 to 75), “medium quality elites” (position from 76 to 124) and “backward elites” (position higher than 125).

Compared to the previous ranking, Portugal maintained its position in terms of political power (19th position), but saw its created value deteriorate (37th position in 2023 and 11th position in 2022); in economic terms, it registered a higher concentration of economic power (42nd position in 2023 and 25th position in 2022), with no reflection on the economic value created (39th position in 2023 and 37th position in 2022).

PS: Isto é o resultado de 50 anos de governo PS ou PSD, partidos que se revezam no poder, numa espécie de acordo não escrito, de forma a poderem alimentar a sua clientela política, numa promiscuidade caracterizada pelos favores (e corrupção) na maioria dos casos a empresas ligadas a familiares dos membros de cada um destes partidos políticos. E depois espantam-se porque o "Chega" sobe nas sondagens. O programa político do PS e PSD, nesta fase pré-eleitoral, lembra a história de Pedro e o lobo. O PS e o PSD julgam - erradamente - que, se chamarem muitas vezes "fascistas" ao "Chega" conseguem assustar os eleitores. Mas esses  eleitores já estão "vacinados" e já não correm em socorro do Pedro, quando ele dá o alarme, gritando que vem aí o lobo. Preciso de um documento da Conservatória dos Registos Civis de Alcochete. Fui lá ontem, por volta das oito da manhã e já tinha cerca de duas dezenas de pessoas à minha frente. Amanhã terei que acordar às 6h30, para estar lá antes das 7h00, pode ser que assim só tenha quatro ou cinco pessoas à minha frente...

Depois admirem-se do crescimento do "Chega"...

 Definition: The Human Development Index measures three basic dimensions of human development: long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Four indicators are used to calculate the index: life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and gross national income per capita. 

 PS: Já não falta muito para "conquistarmos" a 27ª posição..

 

Diepsloot (South Africa) residents call for deportation of illegal immigrants

 

Diepsloot residents want undocumented immigrants deported. Residents are blaming illegal immigrants for the high levels of crime. Recently, the area has seen an increase in violent crimes such as murder, rape, and assault. They marched over to the local police station to hand over a memorandum of demands to the presidency. eNCA reporter Bafedile Moerane has more. (22/09/2023)

European Parliament: Sexual crimes committed by migrants (15.9.2020)

 

European Parliament

Question for written answer E-005044/2020

to the Commission
Rule 138
Elżbieta Kruk (ECR)

 As a result of its open door policy towards refugees, Europe was flooded by a wave of migrants, who came here mainly for economic reasons.

Countries that have received large numbers of migrants, such as Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom, are now seeing an increase in sexual crimes, including rape, against white women and girls.

Significantly, although the number of reports of such crimes is increasing, the number of convictions for them is falling. This is reducing women's sense of security and confidence in the justice system, and it represents of loss of the ability to obtain redress.

There is much to suggest that the reason for this is that the police, who are reasonably afraid of being accused of racism and 'Islamophobia', are discouraged from carrying out investigations involving migrants. As a result, these crimes are going almost unpunished.

For example, Sweden has the second-highest Muslim immigration rate and the second-highest sexual assault rate in Europe. It would be irresponsible to pretend that this is a coincidence.

All reported rapes in Oslo by foreigners: police (Herald Sun)

by Andrew Bolt

 

 A report released by the (Oslo) police on Wednesday states that all assault rapes during last year were committed by men with a non-Western origin. All the reported rapes during the last 5 years are done by men with a foreign origin. Police inspector Hanne Kristin Rodhe says the perpetrators often are unemployed, have been asylum-seekers during the last five years and come from a traumatized environment. She adds that their perception of women can be one of the motives behind the rapes.

Another woman reported a sexual assault during the night in Oslo, just two days after four women were raped in Oslo during a five-hour period on Saturday night. Police are investigating whether the same rapists may be involved in all four of Saturday’s cases... In all four cases, the assailants spoke broken English or Norwegian, or both.

A FOREIGN student who sexually assaulted seven victims claimed he was upset at the way Australian women dressed and behaved, a court has heard. Libyan masters student Almahde Ahmad Atagore, 28, was this morning jailed for at least three years over the assaults in August and September last year. He had been in the country only a month, on a sponsorship funded by his government. But County Court Judge Margaret Rizkalla said Atagore wasn’t prepared for the cultural differences and felt isolated and depressed... Judge Rizkalla said he struggled to adapt to Australian life, without a mosque nearby and with little support... But Sen-Det Dion Achtypis said outside court that Atagore’s nationality was not a factor in his crimes. ''There are many, many overseas students in this country who are law-abiding citizens,” he said.

The translation here is not great, which created part of the problem. The 100% figure actually refers to assault rapes (ie where someone is attacked and then raped). There were 86 of those over the last five years. There were 189 rapes last year in Norway. Looking at the original report on this, 65% of these were (suspected) by foreigners (although in Norway this can mean second generation in their statistics) and the only breakdown I could find of the foreigners stated that 20% were African, 15% Middle Eastern and 14.5% Asian (15% European??). The victims were 70% locals - 30% not. These figures are for last year only, but match data from a previous study closely enough to suggest a consistent trend. So delete 100% and say two-thirds. Also worth noting that this means the majority of rapes are committed by Norwegians as the largest represented group.This is not a new issue in Norway. As far back as 2001 there have been reports showing similar percentages (June 2, 2011)

 

Norway: Rape prevention classes for refugees - BBC News

 

Migrants in Norway are being given classes which educate asylum seekers in Norwegian 'cultural codes' when it comes to relationships with women, personal boundaries, sexual assault and what constitutes rape. We spoke to some of the men taking the class, as well as the organisers and instructors. But the classes, which other European countries may also introduce, have been criticised for stigmatising migrant men.James Longman reports .