Is there an answer to the drug problem?

​I sometimes hear from people who knew Jerry in Prison and their thoughts are always interesting. My time in talking with him were interesting….and my thoughts on the criminal justice system have not changed. It is rigged against the poor.
 
There has to be a better way. If you have any doubts about our drug laws, check out the prison stats. See how many are thee because of some relatively minor drug offense. Again, there has to be a better way.
 
I’m including an article about one  nation where the drug problem was so bad, they tried something radical: decriminalize drugs.
 
Ten Years Ago Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs. What Happened Next?
By Tony O'Neill 07/13/11
When the drug-drenched nation legalized all drugs within its borders, most critics predicted disaster. Instead drug use has plunged dramatically.

Drug related deaths fell by 50%
Photo via thinkstockphotos
 
The government in Portugal has no plans to back down. Although the Netherlands is the European country most associated with liberal drug laws, it has already been ten years since Portugal became the first European nation to take the brave step of decriminalizing possession of all drugs within its borders—from marijuana to heroin, and everything in between. This controversial move went into effect in June of 2001, in response to the country’s spiraling HIV/AIDS statistics. While many critics in the poor and largely conservative country attacked the sea change in drug policy, fearing it would lead to drug tourism while simultaneously worsening the country’s already shockingly high rate of hard drug use, a report published in 2009 by the Cato Institute tells a different story. Glenn Greenwald, the attorney and author who conducted the research, told Time: “Judging by every metric, drug decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country."
Back in 2001, Portugal had the highest rate of HIV among injecting drug users in the European Union—an incredible 2,000 new cases a year, in a country with a population of just 10 million. Despite the predictable controversy the move stirred up at home and abroad, the Portuguese government felt there was no other way they could effectively quell this ballooning problem. While here in the U.S. calls for full drug decriminalization are still dismissed as something of a fringe concern, the Portuguese decided to do it, and have been quietly getting on with it now for a decade. Surprisingly, most credible reports appear to show that decriminalization has been a staggering success.