Adopt Portugal's approach to Drugs

The UK Government needs to wake up and be brave by adopting a new approach to Drugs given the latest grim statistics on UK drug deaths announced on 03/08/21.

Drug addiction is more often than not a response to suffering and trauma in childhood. The UK needs to follow Portugal where their innovative approach to decriminalise all drugs in 2000 has them now with one of the best reductions in drug use in the EU: Drug-related deaths have remained below the EU average since 2001.The proportion of prisoners sentenced for drugs has fallen from 40% to 15% Rates of drug use have remained consistently below the EU average.

The time to be brave and learn from other countries is now