This briefing updates our report on Portugal's groundbreaking reforms, and marks the 20th anniversary of their introduction. It is also available as a free PDF download. In , Portugal decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs as part of a wider re-orientation of policy towards a health-led approach. Possessing drugs for personal use is instead treated as an administrative offence, meaning it is no longer punishable by imprisonment and does not result in a criminal record and associated stigma.
Fines can be issued for subsequent referrals. Where some problematic trends are identified moderate risk , brief interventions are proposed β including counselling β but these are non-mandatory. Portugal was not the first country to decriminalise some or all drugs, and it has not been the last.
The Portuguese model directly influenced the decriminalisation measure passed in Oregon, for example, as well as proposed decriminalisation in Norway. In the first five years after the reforms, drug deaths dropped dramatically. They rose slightly in the following years, before returning to levels in , with only 10 drug overdose deaths recorded in that year. Since , drug deaths have risen again but remain below levels when there were 76 recorded deaths.
While rates fell in Portugal following reform, they increased across the rest of Europe in the same timeframe. In real terms, drug death rates in Portugal remain some of the lowest in the EU: 6 deaths per million among people aged , compared to the EU average of They are practically incomparable to the deaths per million aged experienced in Scotland, which is over 50 times higher than the Portuguese rates.
The move away from criminalising and imprisoning people who use drugs has led to a dramatic change in the profile of the prison population. Since , the actual number of people in prison for drug offences has remained relatively steady, but a rise in overall prison numbers means the proportion of people serving sentences for drug offences has continued to fall.
