Focus Magazin - 12 2013

Get exclusive updates, insider tips, and special discounts on travel and more. Sign Up Now. IBIE 2013 OFFICIAL SHOW DIRECTORY. O F F I C I A L S H O W D I R E C TO RY. All. Together Now. Where the Industry Unites. Official Media Provider Sosland Publishing. Focus Magazin - 12 2013' title='Focus Magazin - 12 2013' />Evaluating Drug Decriminalization in Portugal 1. Years Later. Before he got involved in the global war on drugs, Joo Goulo was a family physician with his own practice in Faro, on Portugals Algarve coast. Arriving in his small office in Lisbon, the 5. He looks a little tired from the many trips hes taken lately the world wants to know exactly how the experiment in Portugal is going. Goulo is no longer able to accept all the invitations he receives. He adds his latest piece of mail to the mountain of papers on his desk. Baixar Planilha De Controle De Estoque Excel Gratis. From this office, where the air conditioning stopped working this morning, Goulo keeps watch over one of the worlds largest experiments in drug policy. One gram of heroin, two grams of cocaine, 2. These are the drug quantities one can legally purchase and possess in Portugal, carrying them through the streets of Lisbon in a pants pocket, say, without fear of repercussion. MDMA the active ingredient in ecstasy and amphetamines including speed and meth can also be possessed in amounts up to one gram. Thats roughly enough of each of these drugs to last 1. These are the amounts listed in a table appended to Portugals Law 3. Goulo participated in creating this law, which has put his country at the forefront of experimental approaches to drug control. Portugal paved a new path when it decided to decriminalize drugs of all kinds. We figured perhaps this way we would be better able get things under control, Goulo explains. Criminalization certainly wasnt working all that well. Much the Same as a Parking Violation. As part of its war on drugs, Portugal has stopped prosecuting users. The substances listed in the Law 3. Portugal Otherwise we would have gotten into trouble with the UN, Goulo explains but using these drugs is nothing more than a misdemeanor, much the same as a parking violation. Why set the limits on these drugs at 1. Descargar Gratis Adobe Flash Player 9.0. Well, its a limit, which by its nature is arbitrary, Goulo says. Now the head of Portugals national anti drug program and an important figure in Portuguese health policy, he still talks like an easygoing family doctor. Arrayed on Goulos windowsill are photographs, including one of him with Richard Branson, the British billionaire and hot air balloon operator. Another shows Goulo with the king of Spain. Both these men have received personal briefings on Portugals new drug program from Goulo. At the point when we designed the law, we had hardly any data to draw on, Goulo relates. We werent the least bit certain this would work. The question at stake How can a government keep its citizens from taking dangerous drugs One way is to crack down on those who provide the drugs the cartels, the middle men and the street dealers. Another approach is to focus on the customers arresting them, trying them and imprisoning them. Legal prosecution as both a control mechanism and a deterrent is the chosen approach for most governments. Giving Up on the Idea of a Drug Free World Its important that we prevent people from buying drugs, and taking drugs, using every method at our disposal, says Manuel Pinto Coelho, 6. Goulos experiment. Pinto Coelho wants his country to return to normalcy, in the form of the tough war on drugs that much of the rest of the world conducts. Pinto Coelho is a doctor too. He has run rehab centers and written books about addiction. Now hes at odds with former colleagues and with the system, as he says. His greatest concern is that his country has given up on the idea of a drug free world. How, Pinto Coelho asks, is it possible to keep young people away from drugs, when everyone knows exactly how many pills can legally be carried around He still believes deterrents are the best form of prevention and that cold turkey withdrawal is the best treatment method. He is also fighting the extensive methadone program Portugal began as part of its drug policy reform, which now provides tens of thousands of heroin addicts with this substitute drug. These days, Pinto Coelho earns his living running diet clinics, but he spends his evenings writing letters and drafting presentations on his countrys absurd drug experiment. He travels to symposiums to warn the rest of the world of its dangers. At home in Portugal, his critical perspective has made him an outsider, but he says hes been well received abroad. As if offering proof, he shows a fact sheet issued by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy, a brief and skeptically worded report on the Portuguese experiment. The Freedom that Overwhelmed the Country. When Joo Goulo wants to explain why it is Portugal in particular that came up with the idea to stop prosecuting drug users, he starts with the countrys Carnation Revolution. In 1. 97. 4, Portugal broke free from nearly 5. Suddenly, the drugs were there, Goulo says, as Portuguese returning from the countrys overseas colonies brought marijuana with them. Goulo, too, says he smoked pot back then. He was in his early twenties and drugs promised us freedom. But it was a freedom that soon overwhelmed the country. When Goulo established his doctors practice in Faro, he soon found himself approached by parents whose children were no longer just smoking joints, but had moved on to heroin. Sometimes the children came to him as well, and Goulo had no idea how to treat them. When the first state run rehab clinic opened in Lisbon, Goulo attended a training course there. At that point, he says, the heroin epidemic was just beginning. In the 1. 98. 0s, cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan began flooding Europe. Portugal was not the only country affected, but Goulo says his nation was hit particularly hard, because people here had little idea how to handle drugs. We were nave, he says. The number of people taking illegal drugs in Portugal was low compared with other countries, but of those who did consume drugs, an unusually high number of them fell into the category that specialists in this field refer to as problem drug users. From the pile of papers on his desk, Goulo unearths a copy of a speech he recently gave in Paris. Flipping through it, he finds the figure hes looking for 1. This is the number of severely drug addicted people in Portugal at the height of the epidemic, in the mid 1. Portugals total population at the time was just under 1. The number of drug addicts who became infected with HIV was also considerably higher than in most other countries. A drug slum formed in Lisbon, at the edge of a neighborhood known as Casal Ventoso. Here junkies slept in shacks or in the garbage, in extremely poor conditions. They shot up on the street, and they died on the street, Goulo says. Anyone in Portugal could observe this phenomenon on TV, in newspaper pictures or even from the nearby highway.