Portugal decriminalised drugs resulting in teen use doubling in a decade

Daily Mail 31 October 2014
Family First Comment: Drug proponents like the Drug Foundation promote Portugal as the model for decriminalisation of dope. Here’s what they DON’T tell you!
The nation held up by the Liberal Democrats yesterday as a shining example of how to win the war on drugs is far from the unqualified success story they make out.
For the number of children using drugs in Portugal has more than doubled since the country’s laws were liberalised, the latest figures show. A decade after the law was relaxed, nearly a fifth of 15 and 16-year-olds use drugs – well over twice the number in the years before decriminalisation.
The controversial Home Office report commissioned by the Liberal Democrats states: ‘It is clear that there has not been a lasting and significant increase in drug use in Portugal since 2001.’ But the evidence suggests otherwise.
The most recent independent report on what is happening in Portugal shows that in 1995 eight per cent of Portuguese teenagers had tried drugs.
In 1999, when laws began to be relaxed, it was 12 per cent.
But after decriminalisation in 2001, it rose to 18 per cent in 2003 and 19 per cent in 2011. The picture for cannabis use is similar. In 1995, only 7 per cent of Portuguese teens had tried the drug but by 2011 the figure was 16 per cent.
READ MORE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2815084/Portugal-decriminalised-drugs-Results-Use-teens-doubled-decade-nearly-fifth-15-16-year-olds-using-drugs.html