# Portugal's drug lesson isn't the law

> Twenty-five years after Portugal stopped arresting drug users, the part everyone copies is the part that matters least.
- Title: Portugal's drug lesson isn't the law · The Conversation
- Summary: Twenty-five years after Portugal stopped arresting drug users, the part everyone copies is the part that matters least. Decriminalization only works when it…
- Keywords: drug policy, harm reduction, portugal, public health, decriminalization, science, ideas, Portugal's, drug, lesson, isn't, law
- Source: The Conversation — https://theconversation.com/portugal-decriminalized-drugs-25-years-ago-but-the-real-lesson-is-what-it-built-around-this-policy-289572
- Author: Karyn Sporer
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: drug policy, harm reduction, portugal, public health, decriminalization, science, ideas
## America's overdose outlier
Nearly 70,000 Americans died of overdose in 2025, down from 108,000 in 2022. At the peak of the crisis, the US death rate was five times Australia's.
## The cost beyond deaths
Substance use disorder drains hundreds of billions a year in healthcare, criminal justice and lost productivity, before you count what it does to families.
## One playbook for decades
US policy has run on the same three moves: choke the supply, punish possession, push abstinence. There are other ways to do this.
## A quiet 25th anniversary
In 2026 Portugal marks 25 years since it decriminalized possession of all drugs for personal use, one of the longest-running public health experiments in drug policy.
## Start from what's true
Portugal's premise is blunt and oddly apolitical: people will use drugs, and policy can cut the harm even when it cannot stop the use.

> People will use drugs, and public policy can reduce the harms associated with that use even when it cannot entirely prevent it.
## What harm reduction looks like
Sterile equipment, services that help people understand what they are actually taking, and supervised sites where overdose can be caught in time.
## Staying alive comes first
None of this calls drug use harmless or gives up on recovery. Keeping someone alive and healthy is treated as the first step, not a replacement for one.
## Born from a heroin crisis
In the late 1990s roughly 1% of Portugal's population was addicted to heroin, and the country had the EU's highest HIV rate among people who inject drugs.
## Experts, then a strategy
A 1998 commission of doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers and researchers produced a national plan covering prevention, treatment, harm reduction and reintegration. Law followed in 2001.
## Not a free pass
Possession sends you to a dissuasion commission that connects you to services or issues a small administrative sanction. Manufacturing and trafficking stay criminal.
## The numbers moved
Portugal logged 105 fatal overdoses in 2023. HIV diagnoses tied to injection drug use fell from 583 in 2005 to 19 in 2024, a drop of about 97%.
## British Columbia's half measure
BC decriminalized in 2023 but never built the referrals. Police weren't required to send people to care, treatment got no new money, waitlists held. The pilot died in January 2026.
## Oregon skipped the system
Measure 110 passed in 2020 with no integrated care behind it and no police buy-in. A 2025 audit found delayed services and chaos. Lawmakers recriminalized in 2024, before the data was in.
## Key takeaway

Decriminalization only works when it sits on top of a funded, connected system of treatment, healthcare and social support.