Decriminalisation versus Legalisation

Throughout the world, drug policy advocates continue to confuse decriminalisation and legalisation. When this happens, the general public inevitably confuses them too. This is an issue because public citizens are even more confused now about the rationales behind the two ideologies.

I was in Los Angeles from November 1st to 7th 2011 for the Drug Policy Alliance conference and noted that people used the terms interchangeably. It is incredibly important to maintain the distinction between one and the other, as this influences policy ideas, advocacy efforts, and treatment strategies. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to define in simple terms what both of these ideas mean, and hopefully be able to help disintegrate some of the confusion that exists.

Decriminalisation of drug possession is a policy that no longer treats a drug user as a criminal, but rather as a patient. Basically, there could be a law which states that persons in possession of a certain amount of drugs is deemed a consumer. This does not mean that the individual escapes scot-free, however. In Portugal, if a person is caught with an amount less than 1 gram of pure heroin (the statutory amount for 10 days consumption), they go to a body called the Dissuasion Commission. This body designs a treatment program for them. Treatment could include psychiatric treatment, psychosocial interventions, and harm reduction measures such as methadone and needle-and-syringe exchange programs.

Legalisation is an ideology whereby drugs would be regulated in the same way as drugs and alcohol. The rationales behind include that crime bosses who run major drug syndicates would run out of business, and that less harm would be done as a result of incarceration.

This is, in a nutshell, how the two are different. What is similar between both of them is to prevent harms caused by incarceration policies. Incarceration, judicial corporal punishment, and capital punishment has been practised for 60 years in Malaysia. These policies have not reduced drug use, increased HIV/AIDS infections, increased risk of psychiatric comorbidity, not reduced drug supply, broken up families, and have stigmatised drug users to such a point that they cannot reintegrate into society as a productive human being, and must instead resort to crime.

The success of Portugal's policies and treatment modalities can be seen in this report by Open Society Foundations: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/drugpolicy/articles_publications/publications/drug-policy-in-portugal-20110829

Our delegation at the Dissuasion Commission, Lisbon, Portugal