In 2001, Portugal decriminalised all drugs, meaning that possession and use were no longer a criminal acts, but were instead, dealt with through the country’s administrative systems. If a person was caught in possession or using, they were referred to a regional panel, staffed by legal, health and social work professionals. If the person was a casual user, they would receive a ‘case seen’ and sent on their way with no repercussions. If it was determined that they had problematic drug use, an individualised plan was developed for them with regards to treatment. Whilst it wasn’t compulsory for the user to attend this, this results of the program show that the vast majority of problematic users do attend these, providing there is no risk of legal ramifications.
According to a 2016 paper by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, the results were:
Drug use fell across all demographics but particularly in 16 to 24 year olds, the age group most likely to start using drugs.
Rates of ‘past year’ and ‘past month’ drug us fell; these are the rates that best describe evolving drug use.
Rates of problematic drug use and injected drug use fell.
Adolescent drug use fell.
The proportion of the population that have ever used drugs fell.
The number of people contracting HIV and Hepatitis C along with deaths from AIDS as a result of injecting drugs fell massively.
The number of deaths as a direct result of drugs fell.
The number of drug based homicides and other crime fell.
And as a result in the drop in crime, the number of prison places occupied by drug users fell.
Many people like to say that ‘yes, it was successful but it cost too much and they abandoned the policy’. This is completely untrue. As with many countries, Portugal went in to a recession as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and, as a result, much of the funding for the program was removed. This did result in an up tick in all of the areas that had improved, but as the country came out of recession, the program started to recover.
A 2021 update paper on the project shows:
Drug related deaths are still hugely lower than in the rest of the EU, and whilst deaths have increased recently, much of this can be attributed to both the rise of fentanyl and the fact that funding, whilst still in place, never recovered fully. The numbers are still incredible though; Portugal’s drug death rate is 6 per million. To put that in to context, if the whole of the UK, at 70 million people had the same rate of drug related deaths, 420 people per year would die as a result of drugs. Meanwhile, the actual figures for the UK for 2025, excluding Northern Ireland as those results are not yet available, was 6582 deaths as a direct result of drugs. Let that sink in; the Portuguese drug death rate per capita is just over 6% that of the UK! This alone should be enough to convince you that at the very least, decriminalising drugs works.
The paper goes on to state:
The proportion of prisoners serving a sentence for drug related crime has fallen.
The levels of drug use have remained consistently below that of all other European countries and in particular, drug use amongst those aged between 15 and 34 is significantly lower than every other European country.
New HIV infections as a result of injecting drugs is now down to around 13 cases per year (yes, that’s one three cases per year) and similarly, new cases of Hepatitis C are down year on year for the past 2 decades. The cost to society of drug use in Portugal had fallen by 18% as of 2010. What does this tell us? Well, it clearly shows that the decriminalisation of drugs significantly reduces drug related deaths, new infections of transmissible diseases, drug related crime and even drug use across society. This can only be a good thing.
Moving on to the Green Party’s stance on drugs, lets start by taking a look at the problem: The 2025 National Crime Agency Threat Assessment for Drugs says that drug use and drug deaths cost the UK £20 billion per year. They say that drug deaths rose by 15% compared to last year, and that last year, they had risen by 30% in England and Wales, by 29% in Scotland and by 6% in Northern Ireland. It also highlights that heroin imports are funding the Taliban, Cocaine imports are not just funding the cartels, but also transnational drug organisations. Cannabis, the UK’s most imported drug, is being imported from the US and Canada along with Taiwan through black market criminal routes. Let this sink in; not only is our current drug policy seeing significant increases in deaths from drugs year on year, but it is also actively funding international terrorism and organised crime, but for some reason, the Government don’t want to change this. Why do you think that is? Well, according to a recent BBC article, all the toilets in parliament are basically decorated with cocaine; our politicians are all coke heads.
So, what do the Green Party want to do about this? In the first instance, they want to deliver on their manifesto commitment to decriminalise drugs, just as Portugal did, but beyond that, yes they want to legalise, and I’ll explain exactly what this is about.
One of the big drawbacks of the Portuguese approach was that it didn’t tackle the organised crime component and street dealing remains rampant. This means that users are ingesting drugs of unknown origin and quality and the black market is still funding international crime.
The Green Party recognise that no matter what a government does or how much it spends, people will always take drugs. We can not stop it. Currently, two drugs are legal and regulated; tobacco and alcohol. This will become more relevant shortly. The long term plan from the Green Party, and it should be emphasised that reaching the end goal would be done one step at a time and analysing the evidence before going on to the next step, is to legalise all drugs and control both supply and response on an individual drug level, with the minimum age for access to any drug being 18 years old.
For example, in contrast to the media headlines and the Parliamentary Labour Party claiming that they will be turning children in to heroin and crack cocaine addicts, the much lambasted policy around heroin and crack cocaine actually specifies that these drugs would only be available on prescription from a doctor in a healthcare environment and only as part of a treatment plan for existing addicts who can not take heroin or crack cocaine synthetic analogues. Additionally, the roll out of Overdose Prevention Centres, OPCs, both as traditional healthcare environments and as mobile units staffed with medical personnel, will allow users to use their own supply, but with clean needles in a safe and monitored environment with people trained to save their lives should anything go wrong. These OPCs will also be equipped to test the quality of the drugs so that users know what they are taking. The mobile OPCs are aimed at homeless users as these people are some of the most at risk users in society. As you can clearly see, the act of legalising but heavily controlling these substances will encourage users to come forwards and use the OPCs without fear of legal ramifications, like in Portugal, but with the addition of the staffed OPCs, will save even more lives and making the substances available as a treatment for the worst cases will help alleviate immense suffering.
Recreational party drugs like speed and MDMA would be available from specialist pharmacies on request. The user would have to go through a short interview and education session before being allowed to purchase the drug, first to discuss the use case to see if their use is problematic or a single recreational use, and then to inform them of the dangers, expectations, warning signs and what to do in the event of an issue. If their use is deemed problematic, they would be referred to the relevant specialists depending on their specific use case. MDMA may be made available in low doses from bars and clubs under license providing the venues can demonstrate that all staff are trained to recognise symptomatic behaviour that leads to problems and that they are also trained to deal with those problems
The much criticised drug GHB, known for its use in date rape cases would also be legalised. The plan with this drug is to make it available only from specialised pharmacies and at much lower doses than those required to render someone unconscious. At these doses, the drug is often used on the club scene as it induces euphoria and in some cases, mild hallucination. This drug, along with any drug from a special pharmacy, would be subject to the same interview process and all venues would need to be trained to recognise the drug and its effects along with how to deal with issues surrounding the drug and taking extra precautions around consuming it with alcohol, and the dangers of drink sharing. Again, it is important to remember that currently, this drug is available from anywhere, in any concentration and staff at venues are not trained to recognise it or respond to it which leads to horrific outcomes for many young women. This policy will significantly reduce the harm that this drug currently does.
Cannabis, the UK’s most used drug, alongside hallucinogens like mushrooms have been shown in the most part to be exceptionally safe when used in appropriate contexts; this means not driving or operating machinery under the influence, not being in a decision making role whilst under the influence and not looking after children under while under the influence to name a few. The plan with these drugs is simple; for cannabis, the policy would allow community cooperatives, under license and regulated, to grow and consume their own cannabis. They would be limited in amount and would also need to provide information and support to the community. Hemp farmers would also now be able to harvest the flower for resale. The smoking of cannabis would be regulated the same as cigarettes, which under this policy, would be much more tightly controlled than they are now, including not being allowed to smoke in publicly accessible areas, like outside schools, so you won’t be walking down the street through clouds of smoke. Mushrooms and other hallucinogens would also be allowed to be used in both research and therapy for cognitive disorders along with being allowed to be used more widely for recreational purposes.
These are just a few examples of how different drugs would be controlled, with the least harmful drugs like cannabis having very light control, moving up to amphetamines and other party drugs having stricter control and the hardest drugs having exceptionally strict controls around them. And for anybody that thinks that this will increase drug use, it didn’t in Portugal and, more importantly, the people that will be taking these drugs are already taking them. It’s just currently illegal and significantly more dangerous as the supply is not controlled.
In addition to this, the plan for education around drugs has been absolutely slammed in the press, but once again, the idiots that call themselves journalists these days have missed all of the nuance around the issue and are deliberately misleading people.
Yes the policy is to educate people about drugs from primary school age, but that is not the same as teaching primary age children how to taker drugs safely; Teenagers, who are already the most likely to start taking drugs, will be taught how to do so safely, but they will also be taught about the health dangers, the societal impact and all other aspects of drug use so that they can make informed decisions. Primary school children will not be taught this, but they will be introduced to the concept of drugs with the aim of the education to dissuade use. If you think this is a bad idea, let me give you an anecdote;
I grew up in a relatively impoverished town in West Yorkshire called Keighley. I grew up around drugs; heroin and cocaine use and addiction were rampant in the town and softer drugs were very widely available. Between the ages of 14 and 17, I spent the whole of those three years stoned beyond reason. I can not begin to tell you how much cannabis I smoked. I also took quite a lot of speed. That all stopped at 17 when I joined the Army. Whilst I was smoking pot like it was on a fire sale, a lot of my friends were trying a lot of other drugs. They ruined a lot of lives and caused more than one death. This was because we had absolutely no education on the subject. We didn’t know the dangers beyond some drugs could kill you if you got a bad batch. We had no idea about dosages and safe ways to consume, we used them in dangerous environments and hung around with dangerous people. A few of the lucky ones like me escaped by enlisting or moving away, but those that didn’t, ended up in most cases, ruining their lives. Some are dead, and others are still addicts now. But the point is, those deaths and those ruined lives would likely have been spared if we had had education given to us around the subject, so for any of you who think teaching kids about drugs is bad, all I can say is that you are idiots and by fighting this, you are actively endangering the lives of young people and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Most young people who are in those situations are not as fortunate as me. Joining the Army likely saved my life, but given the changes in drug policy since I was young, even that option has been removed for most. For the record, with the exception of trying cannabis once when I first left the Army and finding out that I absolutely hated the experience, I have been drug free since 1998, I don’t smoke any more and I barely drink alcohol. Which is great for me.
Coming back to the drug policy, I have only highlighted a very small part of it here, as it really is quite comprehensive. It covers a far wider spectrum than I could realistically cover here, from purity testing at festivals and venues, through controlling supply chains and combating international drug related crime. For those of you who are Green Party members, please log in to the member’s area of the website and use the link in the below to read the full policy. For those of you that are not members, in the short term, please talk to a Green Party member who has read the policy and, as soon as the policies are republished for the public, I will update the link.
Summing all of this up; based on all of the evidence from Portugal over the last 25 years, as someone who has used drugs, grew up around the most problematic use of the hardest drugs and has lost friends to drugs, as someone who now hasn’t used drugs in almost 3 decades and in the context of the National Crime Agency’s Threat Assessment for drugs, I can say this with absolute certainty; The current way we deal with drugs does not work. It is killing an increasing number of people every year; thousands upon thousands of people. It is ruining countless lives. It is filling our prisons with people who need a holistic approach to defeat addiction and is denying them this, increasing the risk of greater use and greater harm on release. It is wasting police and judiciary time, resources and money. It is destroying families. It is funding international terrorism and international crime. It directly causes drug use to be a scourge on our society. It has to change. The Green Party policy, if enacted in full, would almost eliminate drug deaths, would massively reduce drug use, would hugely limit the harm that drug misuse causes, it would save society a lot of money whilst at the same time, allowing those who already use drugs recreationally and none problematically to not only use them legally but to have access to cleaner drugs and to be able to take them in a safer way. It would massively reduce crime, both street level crime and dealing, along with organised crime and would severely affect the funding of international terrorism. This policy treats drugs, drug use, drug misuse and addiction as though we are a society far more advanced than we actually are. It treats people as responsible adults, allows them agency over their own lives, gives support for problematic use and treats the most desperate and vulnerable in our society with compassion and care. It is a policy that we should all not only support, but should be actively proud of supporting.
From my life experiences, the reading that I have done around the subject and from what is blatantly evident if we open our eyes, the current governments reaction, along with that of both the tabloids and broadsheets, is almost criminal and severely lacks any imagination for doing things differently despite massive amounts of evidence. It really is crazy that this policy is not just the way we do it already.
If you are going to leave a comment arguing against this, please, at least have an actual argument other than ‘drugs bad’ or ‘but the kids’, because in the face of all of the evidence and the detail of this policy, they are simply not valid arguments and will make you look entirely foolish. If you don’t support this policy, you either do not understand it, or you do not care about the drug problems we face.
References.
Labour money: https://novaramedia.com/2026/02/20/labour-now-takes-more-money-from-companies-than-from-unions/
Employment Act 2025: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/36/contents
2016 Portugal report: https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/Transform-Drug-Policy-Foundation/Drug-decriminalisation-in-Portugal.pdf
National Crime Agency Threat Assessment for drugs: https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/threats-2025/nsa-drugs-2025
BBC coke in Parliament: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59539589
Green Party Manifesto: https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/
Green Party drug policy (members only at this time): https://policyarchive.greenparty.org.uk/policy/drug-policy/