this is Portland Oregon the city that decriminalized every drug this is Portugal the country that also decriminalized every drug but with insanely different results what is the difference between Portugal's decriminalization and Portland's well the idea is uh legalize old drugs why has Portugal had great success while Portland has failed today 2024 is in people's faces over the last year I've documented the deadliest drug in human history fenol infiltrate nearly every major city in America from Honolulu Hawaii to Anchorage Alaska to Kensington Philadelphia with drug overdose becoming the number one cause of death for Americans under the age of 40 in 37 states in the last 3 years I've seen well over 200 people that I known personally die from fent all overdose it's almost everybody I know yeah now your now your son is [ __ ] o in high school dead as [ __ ] right is he alive right now over what can be done to stop this overdose epidemic in 2020 Oregon passed measure 110 decriminalizing the use and possession of all drugs hoping it would help drug addicts feel more comfortable seeking treatment rather than hiding their drug addiction in the shadows in fear of being incarcerated but in 2024 drug use and possession has been re criminalized and will take effect this September initially taking inspiration from the drug policy in Portugal who claims to have solve their drug issues with decriminalization as a key part of their strategy has made me wonder if there's something else organ experiment was missing besides just decriminalizing drugs nearly 4 years after oregonians voted to decriminalize hard drugs the move has ignited controversy all sides admit something isn't working the question is what now like if you die in public you should have to go to recovery like what do you got for sale MDMA I you drog drogas and make you lose your mind okay so that is bad for healthy man oh man I'm talking about like uh you know there's volcanic activity and stuff like that and earthquakes before I go to Amsterdam and Portugal to see what Oregon may have been missing and what the United States can learn I went back to Portland to see what the locals and drug addicts think about Rec criminalizing the use and possession of these drugs let's talk to the public here see what they think as you can see right behind me I don't like seeing people running around smoking their tin foil and right here is this a common occurrence oh every day in incredible I've been abely wonderful at all times 150 times more comfortable got it I'm in Old Hippie you know we used to get stoned and everything like that but we were respectful people are doing it in a specific way where like look at that it's getting to a point where it's like you can do whatever you want to do but at the end of the day we still over here working hard to get it we all can be homeless we all could be on these kind of things but at the end day we choose to get out and walk a certain way and carry ourselves we all have the capabilities to be less than but we're choosing like we're having a conversation we're dressed a certain way it basically gave open reain for everybody to just do dope I'm not saying prison or jail is an alternative or is the best solution I don't know what the best solution is how has the open a drug use impacted your business if at all people don't feel safe people coming here for example like tourist may think oh I'm not safe here but but I do feel like you know like lot cleaner here than than few years back like you would see fishes on the ground when did you notice that change if at all since last year I think there are people who have straightened out their lives because of um maybe a rude awakening that incarceration um presented in their lives but I know that it's a revolving door I would rather um see other approaches tried do you think Portland had enough time to see the results that they were intending no and I also think we're such a political hot hot bed um both just locally and nationally that the atmosphere isn't appropriate for it I think there's just too many ulterior motives there's a lot of money to be made in the the the justice and criminal systems as well as like the recovery systems and like our our culture is another variable that's not always perfectly transferable to a place like Europe either do you think it's a good thing to be able to use drugs in in public and not sh no no hell no to be honest there's just smells like I think it exacerbated it I think that it just made it a lot you started seeing more of it everywhere instead of being something people did you know behind closed doors it was out in the open we were enabling and even uh promoting drug use they could go to a number of different organizations you know and get clean needles and I understand the I understand the reasoning behind that clean needles crack pipes whatever you wanted they'd hand it to you but they weren't really giving them resources like this is where you can go if you want to get clean they weren't trying to help them get their lives back together so that they could have qu a good life and a quality of life they were just enabling their drug use there needs to be consequences if there's no consequences then people are going to do whatever they want is it dirtier or more clean the last month out here in Portland man with us with Central City Concern here is cleaner um and I just noticed this syringe drop boox right there do you have to empty those man I got a syringe drop boox right here do people even use those or do they just throw them on the ground I I don't know I know that uh people do throw them on the ground though but they do a lot of man people look at these people like they like animals and man it's not true cuz a lot of them actually have do have a little pride man as human beings you know that were Needle on the ground you'd go yeah I wouldn't needle fumble this is this is happening everywhere right phly kington you see all uh scar roll and [ __ ] no but today 20124 it's in people's faces before they were able to point right oh look look at all these drug addicts yeah now your now your son is [ __ ] OD in high school dead as [ __ ] right when tell people that oh hey you know what yeah you can go and shoot up on the street corner here's a foil here's needle well what just happened to all of our businesses that were were here I was born and raised here where's the tourism I feel like they want to do it in their house they should do it in their house not here y as long as it's not on my bus so let me ask you on this bus do you have people often walk in doing drugs no they light up on the bus do you have to do anything about it can you do anything uh we shut the bus down for 20 minutes yeah do that fastly impede and slow down the flow of bus traffic in the city yes takes me out of service it happens daily matter of fact I just when I left my apartment this morning and I was heading uh to go to an appointment there's a guy pants down missing one shoe needle in his arm out is are you witnessing police officers come and say hey sorry man we got to give you a fine no no when I parked down here a couple weeks ago there were a couple guys just doing right right there right on second you you know that whatever that zombie drug is you know like yeah um and you see it still openly and I walked up and I kicked his foot a couple cuz I'm not going to touch make sure he's alive right yeah make sure he's alive no response no response no response called 911 911 didn't show up what they did was they sent this uh Street Mental Health Group you know Outreach group or whatever they are what did they do did they administer dark no they didn't do anything they walked up and they're like hey hey hey and he just happened to move his I mean I was standing there and he just happened to move his head and she's like oh well he fine and they got back in their van and left sure what is that would you suggest um forcible Rehabilitation is that a solution some people I don't like the word forcible you can't force anything on anyone and I'm just shocked of what what Portland has turned into it goes both ways but but it and is a a a result of or the opioid the opioid epidemic you know and that goes back to the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors they're just pushing that stuff on everyone you know as a someone who works in a restaurant just it's terrible it affects business it affects everything seriously we had a guy come in one time I kicked him out for wanting to do venting on the bathroom and he punched something off the wall came back and then threw poop on our window if they're going to rec criminalize are is anyone going to go to jail from the Sackler family you know is anyone going to go to jail from the Pharmaceuticals who started pushing this stuff it's just a horrible a horrible situation I think decriminalizing it has definitely enabled people you you can see it you see the the overdoses you know the spike and Fentanyl you know like Tran is a thing now I mean it's getting pretty serious it's to be uh seriously addressed here I mean it's like a war zone do you think Rec criminalizing drug use in possession will will help your situation as a business owner downtown I think it will initially help it but do I think it's really the help we need in the long run I'm not sure it's like we need to have a better path to recovery and a path where you're forced into recovery sometimes you can't just keep committing committing committing and then there's no repercussion to it like if you die in public you should have to go to recovery sure that should be like that's my bottom line I think these people need treatment and help and I think there's still a lot of Hope for them I just don't think uh open use is healthy by any means for anybody I don't think you give up on people what has happened here since 2020 is insane I have feelings for these people I care but at the same time I pay taxes a lot of money to be here and we need to be able to run a business we witnessing the collapse of the United States of America yeah you know so it looks it looks like it's happening right before I how we deal with drug addiction needs to be um completely different than the way we're doing it now so that's sad we're going to try to figure it out everyone seems to be in pretty unanimous agreement that criminalizing homelessness and putting people in jail is probably not the solution but decriminalizing it and facilitating enabling drug use is also probably not the solution there's something a little bit more nuanced here the solution is somewhere in the middle it seems but what did the local drug addicts think about the rec criminalization of the drugs they use on a daily basis I met up with local Street photographer terara AKA cocaine Michelle to talk with some of the addicts down town all right take the lead let's go across the street into the gates of Chinatown seems like Chinatown in every city out here has a a lot of Dr use and homelessness if you want Portland back do you sure pray Portland Chinatown that's a Devil's Playground but how much has the Devil's Playground changed since the last year I've been here has it gotten better or worse do you think it should be a crime to use drugs no it saves lives it was regulated you know that uh that it would be clean it would be dosed right kind of like marijuana and because people are going to do it anyway there's people that you never ever will they they never ever will uh quit using unless they go to prison and the harm reduction you've seen out here that Sav some lives in your opinion uh I need to get with Governor Tina cotch and put up three radio towers around the whole triat system map to drop in her pocket I want to get with the Local 29 Iron Workers Union get that up in air okay for uh College radio God forbid uh natural disasters think the apocalypse is impending no man I'm talking about like you know there's volcanic activity and stuff like that and earthquakes it seems to be same old Portland but a little less densely populated with tents they get shuffled around so for instance I'm pretty certain I've talked to some people right here it's pretty uh hot spot for drug use question for you sir we're trying to talk to the public and uh figure out their thoughts on the rec criminalization of drugs out here in Portland what was your name I'm Jay Jay we've I'm convinced we've met before J my name is Tyler Jay good to meet you Jay what are you shooting up here Sy no no old fashion white me I'm I literally met you somewhere around here like 10 months ago yeah September when I was out there in front of the subway okay I was real sick [ __ ] M fact a couple days before I wind up going back to the hospital and they had taken a couple of my toes and and yeah so you know Rec ization it never should have been decriminalized to begin with okay it gives you look at look what happened when they did decriminalize it they really didn't give it enough time to they're just now getting these programs up and running got it you had Co going on they didn't have the basis to decriminalize and get what they wanted out of all that this ridiculous what's going on out here and you could see the you could see the route the dope boy took from overdose to overdose down through the block you had one up here you had one over here on this corner you had one down there on the bottom corner fire department didn't even know which one to get first do you carry an Naran with you out here no I don't believe in it yeah you know they want to they want to fix this problem stop giving these kids an AR cam let them die the problem the problem will fix itself that's interesting it's a pretty darwi and way to look at it here have you seen people die on these streets in the last 3 years I've SE seen well over 200 people that I known personally die from fent all overdose it is what do you think could be done to save lives out here stop these deaths I don't know I really don't are harm reduction Services handing out foil like they used to no they don't not anymore no they say they don't really have any resources for anybody okay ran out of money I don't know what their problem is okay plan actually yeah was completely full of tents like last week where did it go I don't know it seems like looking at familiar faces down there they don't disappear some of them obviously die but it seems like one spot to the next to the next a drag you know I kind of think that that uh Oregon should follow in the footsteps of some of these other countries that they've actually uh decriminalized a lot of stuff Portugal yeah Portugal uh Sweden you know some of those countries over there send a group of people over there to check that stuff out quit checking out [ __ ] out here on the street because is everybody's just going like this in circle chasing their tail go over there and just check it out and see how things went and uh we could learn some stuff from maybe some of those countries that were able to do that I agree but before I go to Portugal I want to First teleport to Amsterdam you see people from all over the world come to Amsterdam to do drugs and have a good time doing them I'm mainly talking about weed cocaine LSD and Ecstasy but in the' 70s they experienced a heroin epidemic the master is heroin virtually everyone you see here comes to buy sell or use it nearby junkies inject each other in broad daylight I've never seen anything that is as concentrated as this I've never seen anything as open as this problem has become so bad that police officials and politicians admit privately the Battle Is Lost the city of Amsterdam is slowly moving away from a policy of prohibition to one of accommodation leading them to adopt harm reduction in the'80s at the height of the crisis and were the first in the world to implement a safe needle and syringe Exchange program they were at the time the redheaded stepchild of drug policy in Europe but now many looked at Amsterdam as an example of drug policy Done Right including a lot of Portland activists that fought for the decriminalization of drugs in the first place before I talk with some of the experts who explain their laws and why they believe they work what do the locals here think about these laws drug use and if there are real problems with drug addiction and homelessness like you see in the states do you think they should sell heroin at coffee shops nah it's it's a little bit too far I think what do you think I think everything from you know marijuana cocaine sometimes in like places where you can control it you know okay yeah use Molly and cocaine is it pretty easy to get your hands on out here uh personally I wouldn't know but uh I'm not a fed yeah yeah yeah I I would never I would never you know oh actually uh yeah mostly mostly mostly yeah actually despite Amsterdam being a known drug tourism h with over 160 plus coffee shops basically little weed dispensaries it's important to realize that all drugs including even weed are illegal yet possession of less than 5 G of ganja was decriminalized as of 1976 and the use of other drugs like cocaine hash magic mushrooms and ecstasy is mostly tolerated and if you get caught by the police they can confiscate them but you won't get fined as long as it's in small amounts basically recreational use warrants a slap on the wrist if that it's illegal but people do it and no one cares on top of that Amsterdam also has drug testing Labs where you can test the purity of the drugs you want to use to have a good time and get the results instantly and did you come here to use drugs uh yes yes so like Molly yes anything else uh no was only only M yes did you like it no but because I I am a runner because but uh too fun to to try is okay but uh my opion it's bad are you on Molly right now yes yes yes oh [ __ ] yet despite Amsterdam's extremely accepted relationship of drugs be hard pressed to find a drug addict living in a tent outside smoking fental or heroin on the streets like you would in the US but why I would say uh I don't do drugs and I don't think they should be legal yeah me as well actually for me I think it's bad especially for like the people that want to come here and like enjoy Amsterdam but people just hide out of their yeah exactly okay ruins the pur of the experience a little bit okay what about you man for me it's fine actually but uh as I as I said before I actually it's not my opinion I don't support that but uh we also support Freedom do you need water no no no okay you're good you're high right now yes oh I know that how how was you are you feel good right now yes now hi who um jam J yesterday today I don't move so uh I I am okay and uh he not he not uh he not very very strong the the fact hey well it's been a pleasure speaking with you want to give you a fist bump good to meet you C thank you hi ciao see you we have a mayor right now who wants to decriminalize soft drugs marijuana cocaine party drugs essentially I think there's a lot of logistics that need to be figured out with decriminalizing them why do you think the US has such severe drug problem problems compared to the Netherlands or Amsterdam in this case maybe a mentality of um you know a war against versus working with people here sure I don't have a problem with the drugs okay everything can be legal uh it's my opinion do you guys have any big drug problems here in the Netherlands I don't think so maybe there is in some places there is uh a little bit more problems than than than other places but it's very clean very few people seem to be on the streets dying we'll start off with what drugs of any do you think should be legal if any antibiotics mild painkillers muscle relaxants anti-hypertensives maybe I mean some of them definitely should be legal but not all of them maybe light drugs like like weed or I don't know I guess mushrooms mushrooms yeah or something what are your thoughts on let's say heroin it should be illegal I think because it's uh it destroys people people's lives so most cardiac meds anti-seizure meds insulin oh wow all right you got a full list I'm a nurse okay let's talk about I guess oxycotton fentanyl those I mean those are medically they're narcotics would I want them legalized they are legal in the US with a prescription I would assume it's the same here let's say it was legal regulated safe would that be better for a society or group of people that already is addicted to it and dying off of it is a paramedic fent should never be legalized it's a killer now marijuana yes what about f fol fenol fentol I don't really know what this is okay that's crazy fentol I don't even know what that is the boat really where you get from uh the UK UK leads and you guys are high right now y absolutely okay on weed uh y do you guys think anything harder than weed should be legal like what though like heroin let's say like Coke heroin ecstasy not Coke because Coke's like aggressive gets you like aggressive in it so maybe psychedelics yeah I think anti-abortion stuff has shown that yes you can ban things but Banning it only pushes it underground and makes it more expensive and more dangerous let me ask you this then should fentanyl be legal without a prescription let's say I'm going to say no take the head off the snake okay and you have to go to the source where it's coming from and get rid of the source so obliterate the cartel obliterate these manufacturing plants that would be wonderful if we could do you guys have any drug problems here in Amsterdam yeah what have you seen lots of sh yeah especially the tourist a lot of drug tourism yeah what do they do here nothing just do drugs they don't spend money on good food only on drugs I see do you guys think um most recreational drugs that aren't let's say heroin or H maybe even Coke should be legalized no no you think uh ecstasy should be legal I just did it once twice it was good but um personally I have a friend who uh it's like this once per week and and then he was liter every day or every two days he lost control in just two 3 months he he becames an addict in the beginning I say no everybody can be safe from that but then uh with the time pass and you see the reactions the the excuses the the eyes what drugs do you think should be legal if any should be legal and the mushrooms and the marijuana marijuana that's it anything harder than that uh I don't think so would you ever do uh cocaine no it's that's Madness would you ever do Molly no the best solution for all these problems is to allow people more or less to use but the problem is became bigger and bigger it's going to be a healthy issue and not only in in Amsterdam I don't want to put you in a spot here I'm not a fed either where do people get their drugs if they're not buying off the streets out here other people I I personally I don't really do drugs I don't do drug I believe you I believe you is a radio youpp I know people who do obviously and you just get people's phone numbers social medias I've seen like the telegram group chats too you with the Bitcoin I don't know if that's a scam but yeah there there's ways yeah well if you this is the American market then give people safe needles okay for free condoms for free abortion for free what drugs do you think should be legal if any I think they have it they've done well with the legalization of cannabis here how you can only smoke it in certain places and you know you're not allowed to smoke it out in public that sort of thing you think the coffee shops are a pretty good idea I think they're a good idea because it sort of provides a safe way to do them and so you're not you know get getting them from dodgy people I think other drugs when you start going into harder stuff can start to get a bit dangerous I I think they've hit the nail on their head here to be honest with the you know the rules and the laws around drugs were you here during the heroin crisis in the 70s I was I was in the small Street there D Street there was a student bar I was a bouncer there I had to fight the junkies so uh and they came inside our our our pup and then they asked for a coffee and then you wait 5 minutes and suddenly you saw they went to the toilet and the spoon of the coffee was gone so so you knew uh what was going on of course I've been attacked by them uh with knives and you were pretty buff back then yeah yeah yeah would you linebacker tackle them or what no I I grabbed them lift them up and walked them out and put them on the street what do you think solved the heroin crisis back then why don't I see many um drug addicts on the streets out here today well we got the the special uh they get needles and and places where they can safely uh inject I see I think that if you have uh replacement things which also give you a nice boost you can easily quit the heavy ones you know and also the methadon like methadon is the word I was looking for I think all with all many countries follow the the Dutch uh approach and what advice do you have for the United States to reduce the opioid overdose deaths give everybody who is in jail for wheat you know for soft drugs Freedom again immediately the country with 330 million people uh walking around you know the big tent cities around California in California like Los Angeles like uh people sleep on the streets what the [ __ ] you know got more weed weed weed weed weed weed weed weed off to the red light district we go more wisdom shall be sound and while I was trying to interview some people in the red light district I walked up to this dude he asked me if I wanted to buy some ecstasy so I asked him if I could interview him he saw the camera and began freaking out hey don't play I tell you already how we doing what do you got for sale MDMA hey I tell you you man he I you all right so we got this drug dealer trying to sell me MDMA he's tweaking on me right now now and he kicked me like a little soccer player Fu you ma'am all right we're getting out of here goober tried to sell me some ecstasy I denied I can't believe he kicked me so in search of confirming or denying the reality that drug addicts living on the streets using hard drugs in public here in Amsterdam was near impossible I pulled up to what used to be the drug epicenter of Amsterdam in the 70s and 80s that used to be rampant with drug use and crime in the Z neighborhood in the' 70s this place was the epicenter of the heroin crisis a big open air drug Market was right here now not the case this place is clean freshly gentrified nice decent solid neighborhood which goes to show a neighborhood can in fact be recovered think of the skid Rose the tender loins out there it's not over it's nice out here but why what did they do to fix it how was it saved so I met up with Dennis Ley director of mdhgspelled one of your guys' mission statements is to decriminalize most drugs in Netherlands or what well the idea is uh legalize all drugs okay prohibition isn't working with every product you have whether it's legal or it's illegal you have to deal with production distribution and consumption and drugs have always been there it's a fact of life that people use drugs even animals use drugs with that being said I want to zoom us back in time to the'80s and talk about the heroin crisis here in Amsterdam tell me how did Amsterdam come to this heroin crisis yeah I was in the 70s okay first of all Amsterdam was the middle of the Earth at that time a lot of hippies went to Amsterdam there was already a lot of experimentation with with drugs with LSD with cannabis with hush and and and and stuff like that some of the main causes are uh that drugs coming to New York from China through masay and that chain was shut down and they moved it to Amsterdam at the time the Super became independent in former times it was a colony of the Netherlands so a lot of Surinam people came to the Netherlands because they could get a a passport but didn't get the proper job we had uh American uh soldiers who came back from Vietnam and started traveling around Europe and finding a place in in Amsterdam so all these different factors came came together and get out of that situation people cry out for help uh start helping them and how did you guys do that in the 70s first of all of of course it was illegal but we as an organization didn't uh reach out to people thinking oh you're doing something illegal so we're going to punish you or or stuff like that no we want to help you I've seen a lot of people being addictive for addicted to to heroin or base Coke for 20 25 years never ever going to quit and we started helping them with their financial problems with uh psychiatric problems uh with housing great start make sure people get sleep inside and and and have their own place and then they had all this together and then they started figur out why do I even use drugs but we started thinking about about the the drug markets themselves one of the things of course was that we started with the coffee shops separating cannabis from all the different drug Market was a very good thing to do but we already started with the coffee shops themselves having legal distribution points for for cannabis making the consumption legal uh people who want to to experiment with drugs already got the message from you know there's a big difference between H and cannabis so if you want to experiment with drugs and you go to a c people who were shooting heroin at the time they they shared their needles at that time Hepatitis B was a big problem exchanging the needles people would get Hepatitis B started a program in which people can use get easy access to Needles so they didn't have to change that anymore Dennis's core belief is that the heroin was available regardless therefore giving it to those who are going to use it no matter what in a legally and regulated way would then undercut and destroy the black markets decrease profit incentive for the dealers and cause users to avoid using potentially dirty lace heroin sold on the streets I met up with Hans from legalized who believes legalizing heroin and giving it to the addicts for free was an obvious choice for Amsterdam and what do you do here I I do many things in the realm of drug policy here uh it should be said many of them died okay yeah uh they stopped injecting yeah yeah because we found out that smoking is much better for your health than injecting it uh and we did just give them clean syringes which was a great way to contact them and then tell them like hey how are you doing do you think if they were forcing to some forcable Rehabilitation they would have survived but we we saw most people die after they came out of prison and you can't keep them in prison for their whole life for consuming something that they want how did they die it does happen that if people come out of jail they overdose really quick uh just excited to get back to the drug and get straight into go quite quickly and they they go deeper than they've ever been from there we started with the experiments together with Switzerland to give away free heroin and due to its success is now a full program that you just saw the front door of so tell me about housing first what is housing first and do you think it's a good or bad thing uh housing first is a great thing it gives I think if you don't have a house then you live very bad uh situation very un healthy do you believe someone addicted to heroin let's say could maintain a home if it were given to them so that's not in conflict with the drug addiction or the Habit that's a a common belief in the states at least I really wonder why that is the idea of not giving these people free housing food and whatever else they needed was entirely foreign to the Dutch mind for Amsterdam hardcore drug addiction was a health problem and not so much an act of criminality or laziness like how many view it in the United States one thing you need to understand about drug crisises is that the people who come to the MD for example they have a lot of problems about 90 to 95% of the people who come to us use the drug as a form of self-medication it's because of sexual abuse fathers who've been beating them up working in a system as a as a child already Youth Care those are the problems you need to do something with when you're dealing with a a drug crisis it's not the drug crisis it's the people's crisis do you think involuntary Rehabilitation or forced Rehabilitation is a solution solution to someone addicted to hard drug on the streets no it doesn't work your target should be getting people a good life we have a lot of members who are still using drugs on a very regular basis and they lead a good life and the drug use helps them to have a ordinary life I think that should be your Target and you can see if you help people get a better life uh then the drug problems will will go down what one of the reasons why people don't improve their situation is because nobody's ever nice to them and if nobody's ever nice to you why do you want to walk the path with those people sure I've had people crying just because they went into us and said you're doing nice to me see human kindness is lacking a lot of these organizations and governments and you're tearing up a little bit it's getting emotional on me yes of course of course at the you think people are leaving people behind when it comes to drug use people see these drug users and say these people are trash and they don't deserve help yeah that's the word junk junky right we call people junk these people have been through through such a lot why they start a self-medication and then as a system we react on uh with with punishment and uh spitting at them and and and stuff like that and then it's almost like it it aggravates the drug problem these people continue to look down upon them and they continue to self-medicate even harder so what if I'm a drug consumer and I say my answer and what I want is to use more drugs until I die with with there be a world where I'm involuntarily rehabilitated you know there's not a single person is is the same so it's quite difficult to to oversee this situation so we we will put a a net of safeguarding around this person and give him his dose of heroin or whatever he says he needs with that he will be able to control his own problem and we will help him with that is legally distributed by the uh municipality and the people who are in the program do that on a legal basis in many cases these are people who have been uh addicted to to heroin for a long long time have been trying to stop but that didn't work out so now they can go to the municipality and get legal heroin uh twice a day this works great what is this right here we call this the heroin uh facility this is where people who are uh who have their habits of heroin consumption we give them free heroin Med medicinal grad heroin and we give them uh like housing we we look what they need in their life with that we tackle the whole opiate crisis that we had here in the80s three of these places existing but only two of them also provide heroin and the third one also provides Methadone in the 80s when we started there were 15,000 people only in the night place where they gave it away and now there are only 15 so one five are just left of this group our average age of uh opiate consumer is now 54 which is bizarre and every 5 years the average age goes up 4 years and does that just mean the current drug addicts are still aging and still using heroin there's not a new market for those heroin users hardly program is is such a big success that it almost collapses under its success we need to keep that open because it does help problems if you close them down are much bigger because it's free you know no one can can there's no profit incentive no sell okay and that pushes people to go on the streets and sell Coke and MDMA is what I see around the red light district yeah if you want to buy fake drugs let just powder okay just do that first of all they got their life back together by getting the heroin by getting the hwind because if you know you're getting your hellwin you don't have to chase hellwin anymore and you know okay the rest of the day I don't have to steal steal things to get money to buy new H they're not resorting to less than desirable Behavior they're not selling their bodies or something they don't want to do to get this this shrug well second of all they get good heroin I'm not encouraging anyone to try heroin I respect that for sure I get that but good Pure Heroin isn't that bad as people think it is because the problem with Heroin is it's not just heroin it's mixed with all kinds of stuff if you have financial problems and and chasing chasing heroin you don't have a refrigerator with good food you don't go to sleep on on a regular bases so that's why we in Amsterdam have very very few heroin uses because it's not interesting to start selling it what are some lessons the United States can take from the Netherlands as it relates to drug policy the best lesson would be let's work together on legalizing and regulating drugs instead of fighting drugs because when you're fighting drugs you're fighting people and you're helping the corruption of the system because of the fental crisis there could become something good out of it namely that you will find out that prohibition isn't working and you also destroyed the criminal underground Black Market I find uh what happened in uh Oregon Mega interesting I have not been there they're re criminalizing it I hate that word I am afraid that the rec criminalization is due to the fact that there has been made some really bad policy because yes if we would throw heroin for free uh just make a sign that heroin for free that would not work so we have this in a special program which is this the Sops the standard operating procedures are Mega precise and you we have this whole network of harm reduction social work everything around that in order to keep it safe we continuously are debating are we doing it right how could we do better etc etc and we are putting that in practice what do you think they were missing in Portland I heard some extra money went into harm reduction but I think you should divert all your assets towards harm reduction work against poverty and social inequity and things like that people want to be part of the society and make them part of it and of course there are always people who can't work who have a double diagnose Triple A I so and these people will always be there and as a society the quality of your Society I think is based on how you treat the people who are marginalized okay and by criminalizing that and stigmatizing the use do you think it only pushes people into the darker corners of society to use these drugs anyways you ask me if I think that but I think that's proven but while all of these drugs are still technically illegal if they're being used for non-medicinal purposes in Amsterdam Portugal has gone balls to the wall and decriminalized all drugs across the entire country since 2001 so what is a country that's decriminalized drugs for the last 20 plus years look like compared to what I just saw in Portland and more importantly what did the locals here think about Portugal's unique drug policy I headed to Portugal's capital city of Lisbon to find out this this is where my great great-grandfather fled after hitting a man in the head with a rock and my cousin also visited Portugal and got hit by bus so there's some dark Lore here discriminal see no bad idea bad idea why why drugs is prejudicial for life my friend oh Dr [Music] [Music] um no no no no or no [Music] okay Dr dras no no that's is bad idea we don't like that in Portugal here we don't like don't like it no we don't like it um why is it a bad idea because R make something bad in healthy and make you lose your mind okay so that is bad for Healthy Man Okay gracias um man I wish we spoke Portuguese I think it's a good idea yeah yeah more safe for the users and the public yeah for everyone what do you think in streets [Music] oh yo there's our boy Migo there he is he's climbing buildings now to be fair I've only seen the one guy who was climbing the tower earlier beyond that I haven't seen I've seen two people that are homeless on the streets in massive major tourist area I think that'd be tough to find in the US do you think people should go to jail for using drugs out here no no no no no no no that's too harsh yeah it should it should be legalized let's say I mean why not it doesn't danger anyone so why not what about like fanol that's very bad that's very bad that's should shouldn't be legal that's very dangerous for a little weed pretty good say LD it seemed like the broader public here was surprisingly somewhat mixed in their opinion of decriminalizing anything beyond what they called Soft drugs like weed well at the same time not quick to think that jail time was a solution for hard drug use or addiction so I met up with Dr how Gula National Drug coordinator for Portugal who's credited as the architect for Portugal's drug policy established in 2000 that controversially decriminalized drug use and provided harm reduction and a more health-based strategy and approach to drug addiction places like Oregon and Vancouver looked at the work Dr how did here in Portugal as inspiration for decriminalizing drugs but what led Dr how to the conclusion that decriminalizing drugs would help and did cities like Portland miss anything in Translation along the way and cities like Portland and the US have model to your guys's drug policy you're the Godfather of the drug policy a lot of people are um following right I was part of the of a committee that was nominated by the government in back in the '90s to to build the first national strategy that included uh decriminalization which is by far the most known component of that strategy but I must say that our strategy is far much more than that what was going on here in Port that led you guys to take some unprecedented measures if you agree I'll tell you a little bit of a of a story the drugs problems in Portugal exploded later than in most European countries you were dealing with a colonial war and almost our young male population was sent there uh to serve as soldiers mostly against their will and uh a little bit like the Americans in Vietnam drug use down there was tolerated or even incentivate so most of the those kids developed some habits of using uh substances and they came back uh After the Revolution they brought of course their habits so we had an explosion on experimentation herin became very very popular so in just a matter of a decade during the 80s we had a huge number of people injecting it was uh difficult to find a Portuguese family that had no problems related to drugs had a quite important number of overdoses criminality as well the way our society addressed those problems was mostly based in the idea that we were dealing with a health issue rather than a criminal one we started still by the end of the 80s during the '90s we developed a a quite solid network of treatment centers to address to offer treatment to all those in need harm reduction responses as well such as sering gen needle exchange uh shelters and uh decided to invite a group of people group of experts who we built a document the first national strategy to to for the fight against drugs that included some uh recommendations on the supply side but mostly on the demand side prevention treatment harm reduction reintegration of people everything based in the idea that we were dealing with a health issue and accordingly we proposed the decriminalization of use so the strategy is from 99 the uh decriminalization was approved in 2000 problematic user and addicted person you will probably be uh invited to join a treatment facility the person will be uh evaluated by health personnel in order to identify the needs can they refuse yes yes you can let's say I would say like I don't want any Services let me do my drugs what if I said that to the court commission will say okay uh do as you wish but please do not come here for the same reason in the next let's say uh six P one year what if I did we'll have to apply you some kind of penalty problematic users for addicted people the penalty is never a fine it's the work is mostly of motivating people what about if we get you an appointment for for a treatment center for next week most of the people accept meaning let's say you're caught doing some heroin on the street your heroin would get confiscated and you would then show up to a meeting at the commission for the dissuasion of drug addiction you guys introduced this commission concept so this is more or less an interview with what a psychiatrist a social worker and a an attorney yep it's normally it happens in this uh room actually okay it's um for us to start a procedure we need a police report saying that someone was caught in the possession of an elicit substance for personal usage regardless of what the substance is okay from Cannabis to Arin cocaine MDMA whatever and they will do a risk assessment to determine if that person should be considered a recreational user or a drug addict and if it's an high risk situation basically means a drug addict I would like to stress out The Proposal Part because it's nonmandatory it has has to be voluntarily accepted by the person so what if I come in here this is maybe my third time at the commission I continue to get caught using a drug let's say I'm deteriorating maybe I've overdosed multiple times I've died a few times been brought back with some naram I say I don't want any of your help leave me alone what is your guys' next step well in those cases Ling we can apply sanctions and normally in that particular case although the cases are individually assessed an individually decided so it's my understanding a lot of these people agree to help in some form right what percentage would you say agree to some form of Rehabilitation or assistance getting back to their feet if it's a serious problem I would say around 80% 85% of the people that we suggest any sort of referral they normally accept that referral since it's non-mandatory we have to do uh we have to take the extra step to try and motivate or convince the person that it can actually benefit them in any way that referral decriminalizing only solves one problem which is the criminal record problem but as a diversion scheme you need not only inputs which for us it's the police report saying that someone was caught but you also need to bear in mind the outputs and the outputs is the suggestions for referrals that we do and so for that you need a structure like the dissuasion commission this is the complete package uh uh I insisting the idea that decriminalization is just just a part of it one piece of the puzzle one piece all the pieces are uh on one side decriminalization with uh the dissuasion system okay and then we have prevention treatment harm reduction reintegration of people and Supply reduction it's not a crime there a Health crisis that's the paradigm shift that's it this shift in perspective of viewing drug addiction as a Health crisis rather than a criminal one in combination with the police psychiatrists social workers working together rather than individually to help these drug addicts seems to work quite well in addition to decriminalizing drug use providing harm reduction restricting privileges if you refuse to receive treatment Portugal also has safe consumption sites where people can use drugs safely with the goal of preventing overdose deaths and open air public drug use I headed to Cal ventoso a rough area known for drug users and traffickers to see how it works your first day you going to Cazal ventoso why is that bad he's very bad he's very dangerous have drugs uh the the people s send drugs have guns video for me and we're at a consumption site right here yes let's check it out we test substance in partnership with another Association named The Cosmic care okay they come here and the clients that want to know what they are using have the chance to check the the trucks okay so safe testing hering you you go inside and crack cocaine you go inside but if you want to smoke marijuana you can be there okay uh no because in Portugal we don't we don't have Fant okay at least yet but uh I like that last part yeah okay yeah let's see what's up we are not allowed to bring any material from outside because we don't know if it's sterilized or not we're going to sign this document this document allowed us to act in any case of overdose or any case of liability waiver it allowed us to act to give n and all the the the procedures that are necessary to revert any overdose situations so so what's going on right here the the most used substance here are crack cocaine and and herine both they watch me as I shoot up yes okay yes and if you need help or say OD would they be the ones to come out yes avoid any kind of emergence situations overdose deaths by overdose so the assumption is they're going to use already might as well use safely yes they are going to use so it's better to use in a safe place with dignity with a team that can act in any case of emergency yeah you have two needles all the material that you need to do a safer consumption everything I need everything you need I don't have to pay for it no nothing okay for example if they are going to use an amount that is higher than they used to to use we talk with them and educate them not to do because say looking to up my dosage today yes can you guys monitor me a little bit more Clos than usual we can talk a little bit I can explain to you the risks that you are taking and we are prepared to uh act he's an educator I see yeah and he's a nurse hi so you guys go in there when let's say someone's oding would you come out of this room and see what's going on yeah got it so safe injection safe smoking marijuana zone free everything to use yes how many people do you guys service per day roughly I have PR day about 300 entr in the space significant yeah is this a private public institution is this funded by the government what fed funded by the government 8% and 20% by the city council of Lisbon okay this is Lisbon investing in their Community we want to make sure our users are safe here they can take shower here they can socialize they can watch a TV they can read a book they can do activities they can they can access Internet everything that we have here is from donation so we have this donation and then we give back to our clients because 25% of our population is homeless right now and so they it's very needed items for them okay yeah it's a full service stop here yes because it's very important to give to them not only the access to the drug consumption rooms but the other needs that they that they have do you think this consumption site has saved a lot of lives yeah yeah this is like the first door to go back to the system many of them do not have ID for example it's not like they are not part of our society so give back to give us the chance to be closer to them and understand their needs uh and try to work individually with them do you think that Portland for example was missing any ingredients to this recipe uh I think there was not enough time in fact uh and secondly we try to take care of this person in all components of of his his life and to drive and to to to guide this this person through the system we do not give him or her just a piece of paper with some phone numbers you if you need help just call this I see no we take charge of these people well I think they I think they missed a few steps can you tell me those steps well one of them was the the non apprehension of the substance okay for example that gives the wrong message to everyone you're saying someone that it's illegal to have this substance in their possession but then when a police officer officer finds you with that he doesn't take it from you so does that make sense no I think the worst thing Argan did was closing it down after two years interesting give it some time and you will need some evaluation and you will need to eventually take a step back to take two steps forward and so on so I think the was just too rash and the the the fal problem that you have in Oregon it's not because you decriminalized your accus as a scapegoat as a as an excuse for everything that was happening I see and if you look into other states that didn't decriminalize but has the same situation going on New York if the same thing is happening in different places sure but you don't have that same cause it's probably not because it's not that thing that it's causing those things right so I can say it was a Triumph of politics over policy I see it's what it is and it's it's one of the reasons why I think our system in Portugal actually worked was because we were were able to come up with a policy and leave the politics out of it is this something that any country could apply in some fashion it it could be done doable everywhere in the world it might not be in the same way as we did because legal framework is different the culture is different the healthcare system is different so you might have to adapt things but it's doable anywhere in the world okay