With completely legalized drugs, Portugal had the lowest rates for drug abuse despite this legalization, having completed the goal of actually helping drug users rather than condemning them, achieving lower drug-related crimes and lower rates of addiction. With this information being public why hasn’t the rest of the world followed suit? America should legalize, regulate, understand, and destigmatize drug use similarly to Portugal to change the perception of drug users from condemnable criminals, to people who are seriously sick and in deep need of help.

Changing the perception of drug use would be extremely difficult to pre-establish bias throughout America, especially during the war on drugs that Nixon started. During this campaign, Nixon declared war on drug abuse, drug dealing, and illicit drug presence in America, Nixon’s speech states “We must also act to destroy the market for drugs, and this means the prevention of new addicts and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted.” but this was largely overshadowed by his declaration of war on drugs being. This public declaration of war on drug abuse, sale, importation, and presence, quickly led to drug-related crimes skyrocketing due to the new stigma. The war on drugs had completely ended up a massive policy failure that still affects America today. The war on drugs caught much more attention than the part where he mentioned “rehabilitation of those who are addicted” leading to federal spending on drug prevention improving but not for law enforcement and drug crackdowns, leading to significant civilian casualties and a higher chance for a crime to be drug-related. By ostracizing and villainizing the drug users they weren’t able to receive the rehabilitation that Truman promised due to Nixon’s original initiative being emphasized through law enforcement and interdiction in place of public health and treatment. NPR displays the results of treating substance use disorder like a medical condition instead of a punitive crime through their data“But the nation has seen a significant decline in state and federal inmate populations, down by a quarter from the peak of 1.6 million in 2009 to roughly 1.2 million last year. There has also been substantial growth in public funding for health care and treatment for people who use drugs, due in large part to the passage of the Affordable Care Act."The best outcomes come when you treat the substance use disorder [as a medical condition] as opposed to criminalizing that person and putting them in jail or prison," said Dr. Nora Volkow, who has been head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse since 2003..” This excerpt of data displays what the effect of Nixon's “War on Drugs” should've been like.  Ironically enough, this data shows the undoing of what Nixon’s campaign had caused after its launching. The effects of destigmatizing substance use disorder are exemplified through the lowered amount of drug-related arrests and increased public funding which are indicators that the movement to destigmatize drug use is growing. Lowering the amount of drug-related crimes occurring is key since our prison system is designed to heighten the chance of repeat convicts as well as the creation of more inmates, hence preventing people in need of help from staying in prison for longer than necessary is essential for the betterment of society as a whole. 

Portugal’s drug overdoses have reached an all-time low since they decriminalized drug use. According to this article by Transformdrugs “In the first five years after the reforms, drug deaths dropped dramatically. They rose slightly in the following years, before returning to 2005 levels in 2011, with only 10 drug overdose deaths recorded in that year. Since 2011, drug deaths have risen again but remain below 2001 levels (when there were 76 recorded deaths)”. Drug deaths dropping dramatically in the first year after Portugal's drug policy reforms heavily suggests how much the criminalization of drugs affected drug users' chances of survival. This is significant because it means that more people were able to receive help and safe drug use practices occurred more often. Knowing drug users will be safer when law enforcement Portugal’s health services don’t persecute them will be more effective because users no longer run the risk of being arrested and gaining a criminal record. Changing the drug policy doesn’t only increase the chances of survival but it helps abusers take less drastic measures that would likely end with life-threatening consequences for either themselves or the people around them. Although drug users are less likely to be put in prison for using they use fines and other legal deterrents as well as maintaining the stance that drug users are mentally ill people. 

Criminalizing drug use only villanizes and isolates people who need help and makes them less likely to seek help despite the severity of their situation. The decreased rates of overdosage after decriminalization indicate that there were individuals who wouldn't have sought out help or isolated themselves around the time of their overdosage, allowing them to be saved. With decriminalization, Portugal has successfully changed the narrative from drug users being depraved criminals to drug users being mentally ill with a disorder that needs to be studied and cured. Our current narrative of drug users only leaves the desperate and fearful to take drastic risky methods because of their addiction. While criminalization is a big deterrence for the average person to turn to drug abuse those who are at greater risk of falling pray to substance use disorder aren’t as deterred by it because they feel as if they need to abuse for one reason or another. Not to mention the number of people who already are users that have already developed a dependence or addiction that is far past control. Both those at risk and users are essentially isolated in their fight against substance use disorder due to lack of education, support, and rehabilitation. With decriminalization the changing of the narrative would be much easier because they’d be viewed differently in the eyes of the law correctly envisioning Nixon’s “War on Drugs” campaign.