Norway Is Moving To Decriminalize All Drug Use | Zero Hedge
Description: Norway is the latest country to move toward decriminalizing drugs and promoting addiction treatment rather than punishing addicts.
Keywords: Zero Hedge,Zerohedge,Finance,Economics,Markets,Politics,Analysis,headlines,Norway,Portugal
Date: 2013-01-07T00:00:00Z

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# Norway Is Moving To Decriminalize All Drug Use

by Tyler Durden
Dec 15, 2017 5:00 AM
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Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

Norway is the latest country to move toward decriminalizing drugs and promoting addiction treatment rather than punishing addicts.

This week, a majority of members of the Norwegian parliament directed the national government to reform its policies.

> “The majority in the parliament has asked the government to prepare for reform,” a spokesperson for the Storting, the Norwegian legislature, told Newsweek.

> “It has started a political process,” he said, still cautioning that “it’s just the starting point.” Despite some headlines’ claims that drugs have already been decriminalized, there is no legislation yet.

Nicolas Wilkinson, the SV (Socialist Left) party’s health spokesman in the Storting, said the majority wants to “stop punishing people who struggle, but instead give them help and treatment,” according to VG, a Norwegian publication. He said the switch in policy will lead to an emphasis on treatment and follow-up programs, though lawmakers made it clear that they do not intend to legalize drugs.

> “It is important to emphasize that we do not legalize cannabis and other drugs, but we decriminalize,” Sveinung Stensland (H) [Conservative Party], deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, told VG.

> ”The change will take some time, but that means a changed vision: Those who have a substance abuse problem should be treated as ill, and not as criminals with classical sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.”

Officials in Norway have been considering reforming the country’s prohibition policies for over a decade. Newsweek summarized:

> “In 2006, it started to test a program that would sentence drug users to treatment programs, rather than jail, in the cities Bergen and Oslo. In early 2016, the country gave Norwegian courts the option to do this on a national level.”

> “The goal is that more addicts will rid themselves of their drug dependency and fewer will return to crime,” Justice Minister Anders Anundsen said at the time. “But if the terms of the programme are violated, the convicts must serve an ordinary prison term.”

The shift was introduced by the country’s conservative party, though some on the right condemned it, arguing drugs should remain wholly illegal, while reformists believed the change in policy didn’t go far enough.

As Arild Knutsen of the Association for Humane Drug Policy said last year:

> “If Norway was truly progressive, they would follow WHO and UNAIDS recommendations and fully decriminalize drug use, ban forced treatment and stop using involuntary urine controls.”

Now, it appears Norway is inching closer toward decriminalization. Portugal opted to decriminalize drugs in 2001, a move that has drawn praise for the decrease in drug use that followed.

However, lawmakers hope to free up resources so police can pursue drug traffickers (rather than users), and other restrictions will remain. VG explained:

> “It will still be a ‘ban on use and possession of drugs.’ However, the two major parties agree to ‘change the authorities’ reactions to persons taken for use and possession of drugs, from punishment to help, treatment and follow-up.’”

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shitshitshit Dec 15, 2017 5:04 AM

It is not told directly but this drug problem might have been wildly amplified by the influx of rapefugees...

That will cut potential revenue sources from the rapefugees, in addition to ensure the merchandise sold is sane and controlled in the first place.

Less hypocrisy, brilliant move, following Portugal.

BennyBoy shitshitshit Dec 15, 2017 5:07 AM

Just legalize all drugs.

But drug test all politicians and report what they are taking, prescriptions included.

Arnold BennyBoy Dec 15, 2017 5:17 AM

That and a guaranteed minimum income is the goal line of some game.

Yes, it's a Finland article.

https://qz.com/876985/finland-hopes-to-dispel-one-of-the-biggest-critiqu...

Arnold Arnold Dec 15, 2017 5:19 AM

At least Village Idiots have a regular, if low paying gig.

svayambhu108 Arnold Dec 15, 2017 5:31 AM

Your body is your property so you should do whatever you want with it, on the other hand the medical bills...

Arnold svayambhu108 Dec 15, 2017 5:36 AM

Socializing Stupid is no way to go through life, boy.

jeff montanye Arnold Dec 15, 2017 6:02 AM

i love the way the booze hounds get to tell the pot, coke, acid, etc. heads who has the drug problem.

Arnold jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 6:09 AM

The shift of focus to alcohol (guilty as charged ), is some sort of logical fallacy in an argument.

Five Star Arnold Dec 15, 2017 6:27 AM

Wonder if it has anything to do with Norway tax revenues per capita.

http://thesoundingline.com/norway-trouble-in-paradise/

philipat Five Star Dec 15, 2017 6:58 AM

Yes but Norway doesn't have Private prisons run by the Elites which have to be filled to make the ROI attractive enough.

CallzThroat philipat Dec 15, 2017 8:01 AM

I'm making over $15k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.Jobzon3.com%3Ab8eR_DQLwGRPVGtFvv...

DownWithYogaPants CallzThroat Dec 15, 2017 10:43 AM

How is a poor CIA member supposed to make a buck if they decriminalize the drugs? Their price will drop and it will foil all my plans!

The government is running all the drugs anyway. This is a cruel farce what we have presently.

nmewn jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 6:26 AM

Its Like Wow...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyCkhPTU13w

GUS100CORRINA nmewn Dec 15, 2017 6:48 AM

Norway Is Moving To Decriminalize All Drug Use

My response: Just one more idea from the PIT OF HELL that will lead to mankinds demise. O'foolish GALATIANS, who has bewitched you??? EUROPE is indeed a SPIRITUAL WASTELAND. For anyone wanting to know more, look up the GREEK WORD "Pharmakeia" and explore the matter for yourself. Below is one video that provides a lot of good information. Video Pharmakeia The Sorcerer's Wand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gDnDE_WpU8 BE CAREFUL OUT THERE and have a Merry Christmas.
peddling-fiction GUS100CORRINA Dec 15, 2017 9:17 AM

Legalized invocation and evocation keys.

What could go wrong?

<chuckle>

LawOfBass Arnold Dec 15, 2017 9:36 AM

I am for legalizing...if people want to do stupid shit they should be able to do stupid shit as long as it's not harming others.

Caveat - there must be state run help for people with drug problems. BUT SOCIALISM. I don't care. If you take the money OUT of the prisons and the "WoD" there will be monumental amounts of money to help the junkies.

There would still be laws similar to alcohol (age/open container/public intox etc... legislated by the state)

This does not mean that I can shoot up and go to work...that is a slippery slope..there would have to be accountability and an employer should be able to say 'ur high. ur fired.' and that would include 'trace' amounts in the blood stream. Something else that would have to be defined...

I am a state power, less fed, NO socialism type of guy but the WoD is a joke and people getting locked up for d e c a d e s for drugs is ridiculous (3 strikes).

Many of the 'drug' problems are not wasted people but people having to fund their habit and the fallout from said aquisition of funds.

WoD is a big scam. A. the fall out is massive. B. it furthers the police as paramilitary force (i don't blame them...i'm not going into SE *wherever* with nothing but the best hardware C. it's a $$$ glut and with excessive $$$ comes corruption.

IT DOESN'T WORK AT ALL. LOL How much WORSE could it be if there was no WoD mentality? In certain places ANY drug is available almost 24/7.

swmnguy LawOfBass Dec 15, 2017 9:43 AM

Obviously drug addiction and abuse is not a problem that lends itself to a legal/incarceration solution. We've spent an awful long time proving that. Such an approach is very lucrative for certain well-connected Oligarchs, but a disaster for the rest of us.

Drug addiction and abuse includes tobacco, alcohol and excessive caloric intake, and it's a mental health issue. A thought disorder. Somebody who weighs 450 lbs shoveling in a half-dozen Big Macs to make it to lunchtime isn't thinking properly, seems rather obvious. A junkie deciding to add a little Fentanyl to the smack isn't thinking properly, I think we can just stipulate. Putting said people in a cage controlled by drug gangs isn't going to help.

People say, "Just let people die." OK, if you have an anti-social disorder and complete cynicism. Human beings have banded together since the evolution of the species and only defectives don't need a social order. So it's up to us to come up with a social order that provides people with useful things to do, and takes care of them when their health falters. If it's bad financially to have a functional society, then maybe our financial system is the problem. Devotion to a stupid system that doesn't work as it's supposed to for a useful purpose is the height of idiocy, like shooting methamphetamine.

Arnold swmnguy Dec 15, 2017 10:20 AM

Agreed.
Lots of unrecognized mental health issues running rampant.

DisorderlyConduct swmnguy Dec 15, 2017 10:54 AM

Wow. Just broad brush enough and anything sounds grand.

snodgrass LawOfBass Dec 15, 2017 10:24 AM

Why should the state, ie the rest of us, have to pay to fix someone else's problem with drugs? I'm for legalizing as long as someone doesn't drive or go to work on them. But as for rehab, tough shit. It's their problem let them pay for it. Besides, most rehab doesn't work anyway because drug like alcohol abuse is a symptom of a bigger problem: failure to grow up, take responsibility or to get on with life.

ParticularlyStu... BennyBoy Dec 15, 2017 5:16 AM

The king Kenyan's kids are druggies. In DC they made it legal for kids to do drugs, but the suppliers get the book thrown at them. Of course, if there were no demand there would be no supply. Sort of like how there are no book dealers at those DC parties.

UmbilicalMosque... ParticularlyStupidHumanoid Dec 15, 2017 5:28 AM

It's a wonder his adopted kids aren't heroin addicts!

LawOfBass ParticularlyStupidHumanoid Dec 15, 2017 9:43 AM

POT. Not DRUGS. You can grow 6 plants (that is POUNDS of pot) and you can get a medical card very easily.

Not my cup o' tea but I'm told that what dealers do is give it away for a donation/gift. No actual sale. Sketchy or whatever but I really doubt DC's finest care. Heroin etc...is a bigger problem.

Crazy Or Not shitshitshit Dec 15, 2017 5:11 AM

Portugal is so chilled, its a curious experience to chat with the police while skinning up a reefer.

UmbilicalMosque... Crazy Or Not Dec 15, 2017 5:26 AM

No niggers there, so it is easy to be "chilled."

QIG UmbilicalMosqueSweeper Dec 15, 2017 5:52 AM

Bad form to use racial slur. Be more creative.

dunce UmbilicalMosqueSweeper Dec 15, 2017 5:55 AM

Muslim immigration is hastening their useless nigger problem.

rbianco3 shitshitshit Dec 15, 2017 6:09 AM

Aha, so you're saying THEY are the drug dealers.

Brilliant legalize everything and put them on the street! Now everyone can go to the local convenience store and pick up some heroin, blow, booze and cigarettes. I hope they have Obama care.

Crazy Or Not Dec 15, 2017 5:08 AM

Norwheyhay.

jin187 Dec 15, 2017 5:17 AM

Not only should the government legalize all drugs, they should hand them out for free to anyone that asks. Hand out pamphlets on how to use them to properly commit suicide, kinda like Mexico does with border jumpers.

Gazooks jin187 Dec 15, 2017 6:12 AM

no, legalizing limits massive black-op CIA/DIA profits..

..just maintain existing naturalized Paki ISI agents importing tons of US protected Afghan smack in protected diplomatic status shipping containers to major ports foisting on citizens anywhere and everywhere USA to keep the justice money machine rolling for lizard-class politicos, judges and fuck-face cocksucker Andy McCabe

new game Dec 15, 2017 5:19 AM

wow, a glimmer of hope. jeffy boy, you comprenday. not, the fuking idiot is as dumb as a box of rocks. in fact sessions is a old school brain dead fuking idiot. trump, this is on you. fire the fuker now, and get someone to go after the cunt and all her henchmen and women. fuk trump...

jeff montanye new game Dec 15, 2017 6:14 AM

the inspector general's investigation combined with the fall out of the mueller investigation may very well capture hillary clinton eventually.

drug legalization is the kind of out of the box, yet cure for ills that seem so easy and obvious to fix (as opposed to, say, war or poverty) that should appeal to president trump. i want the president to be the gift that keeps on giving; it is so hard to get a free thinker through the american political process.

we need more presidents without any political or military career, imo. fuck precedent, fuck knowledge of protocol. see where it got us by the end of obama: greatest control fraud in history, utterly unprosecuted; totally politicized and corrupt investigative and clandestine services; two million dead, six million homeless, six trillion dollars pissed away on seven countries in five years and still the most expensive and less effective healthcare systems in the advanced world.

William Dorritt jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 8:34 AM

If Muhammad Obama wanted it, it was bad for America and Christians.

Love the fake birth certificate, all of his generals, judges and appointees must be removed.

All of the Conspirators and Co-conspirators inside and outside of Govt must be arrested and prosecuted and their assets seized, the Trillions in stolen money.

BritBob Dec 15, 2017 5:22 AM

Canabis and Depression

A study following 1600 Australian school-children, aged 14 to 15 for seven years, found that while children who use cannabis regularly have a significantly higher risk of depression, the opposite was not the case - children who already suffered from depression were not more likely than anyone else to use cannabis. However, adolescents who used cannabis daily were five times more likely to develop depression and anxiety in later life. (Royal College of Psychiatrists)

UmbilicalMosque... BritBob Dec 15, 2017 5:24 AM

(((Psychiatrists)))

zvzzt BritBob Dec 15, 2017 5:50 AM

copy-paste alcohol, pain-killers, (and .gov?)

jeff montanye zvzzt Dec 15, 2017 6:18 AM

i think so and do remember that coming off pot produces a, sometimes delayed, temporary depression that can induce further pot use to counteract so depression seems to dog users. so either don't stop, do stop, or deal with it. possibly rather light use can avoid this syndrome.

it's just the drug; you're not really depressed.

William Dorritt BritBob Dec 15, 2017 8:43 AM

INteresting, a debate or discussion worth having.

Education is part of the solution and can be part of the problem.

Free will should be preserved, not nanny govt by marxist progressive know it alls on campus.

ConfederateH Dec 15, 2017 5:30 AM

The white Viking males first had thier children stolen from them by the feminists. Then the feminists stole the entire $1T sovereign wealth fund and used it for free birthcontrol, free maternal leave, free PMS therapy. Then the feminists worked with their (((puppet masters))) and let the entire third world in so that they could cuck thier cunts.

Now the feminists and their puppet masters have stolen the country from the vikings, and all they have to offer any more is de-criminalized and cheap stupor inducing drugs.

Don't laugh, its happening in the US. What else could this opium/fenatyl epidemic be about.

jeff montanye ConfederateH Dec 15, 2017 6:25 AM

free birth control is a wonderful idea. unwanted children explain a lot of the horror in today's world.

decriminalized drugs ditto. the negative fallout from prohibition explains ditto.

free maternal leave and pms therapy sounds like a much better deal than the global war on terrorism, as well as way cheaper.

also it's not always i before e.

Arnold jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 7:09 AM

The de radicalizing of the Red Brigade, Red Army Faction, Baader Meinhoff,and so on, was accomplished in part by getting them married with children.

http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat58/sub385/item2372.html

Different days for sure.

ConfederateH jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 8:04 AM

> "free birth control is a wonderful idea. unwanted children explain a lot of the horror in today's world."

Nonsequitur.

> "free maternal leave and pms therapy sounds like a much better deal than the global war on terrorism, as well as way cheaper."

False choice.

The real question is what are you going to do with millions of useless man hating and half senile spinsters and their cats? Just like the younger, shicksa tramps they are training, they think that beta men are going to be their slaves 4 evuh.

What happens when this lie they have constructed finally collapses and they are stripped of thier beta-male reparations will be one of the more interesting developments in the next decade.

There will no longer be free shisksa pills then.

William Dorritt ConfederateH Dec 15, 2017 8:39 AM

Author unknown

Repeal the 17th and 19th Amendments and you will restore representative government in this country.

The Senate will represent the States, and the House will represent American families.

Back before women could vote, just about every man of age, able to vote, was married and generally had kids. His vote was not some selfish individual exercise, he was voting for what was best for his entire family, including his wife and children. His vote represented the will of his family (and anyone claiming women had no say is ignorant of the persuasive power of women, and the long history of women exerting significant power in government prior to women's suffrage). Now, with individual votes for every individual person, the smallest unit of government is not the family but the individual, and individuals are selfish, easily swayed by government bribes, and easily divided up into conflicting things like men vs. women, generation vs. generation.

One of the key arguments against the 19th Amendment at the time was from women themselves, who knew and understood that with the right to vote also carried with it responsibilities to one's family and community that men had taken on for generations, particularly the duty to defend that family and community by taking up arms in times of war. In other words, women opposed the 19th Amendment fearing they would be subjected to military draft. Only when they were assured that the right to vote would be granted to them without any responsibilities included, did women start to support women's suffrage in large numbers. This is very telling of the way the vote used to be treated, and the way it is treated now.

The entire culture of the electorate was radically changed, and was soon followed by a massive expansion of government size and power as government hand-outs became a method of winning votes from now individual, selfish voters not representing anyone but themselves. There was also a corresponding rise in age of average marriage, a massive rise in divorce rates, and a huge drop in birthrate that has since necessitated a huge influx of foreign labor to keep the economy going, which further shreds the cohesive nature of family and community that sustained the nation for its prior history.

Why do you think the Left is now pushing for an end to the Electoral College? That is the last part of our government that is truly a representative form of government. They have destroyed the family as the smallest unit of representative government. They have turned the Senate from a deliberative body looking out for the interests of the States into a corrupt institution subject to the persuasiveness of bribes and hand-outs. Next they seek to take over the Presidency which will allow them to win power by appealing to the interests of a selfish individualist majority concentrated in only certain areas rather than what's best for every state in the Union.

Stan522 Dec 15, 2017 5:33 AM

Great...... Now we'll know if this experiment will work....

Ghordius Stan522 Dec 15, 2017 7:06 AM

read again:

"Portugal opted to decriminalize drugs in 2001, a move that has drawn praise for the decrease in drug use that followed."

the "experiment"... works. 16 years of experience

the template "WAR ON ...." is the "experiment" to reconsider

of course we all know that the US War On Drugs is actually about State Control, Prisons For Profit Biz and so on

Azannoth Dec 15, 2017 5:48 AM

I bet using Hemp Oil to cure cancer will still be punishable by 10+ years in jail

Arnold Azannoth Dec 15, 2017 5:58 AM

Antabuse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/old-drug-alcoholism-finds-new-lif...

If you weren't so stoned, you might have seen this.

jeff montanye Arnold Dec 15, 2017 6:30 AM

discovered through a drunk's fall out a window nearly half a century ago.

much of the healthcare problems of the world are explained in this sentence:

the drug companies (and their captive governments) don't want cures, they want customers.

Arnold jeff montanye Dec 15, 2017 6:36 AM

Agreed.

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