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By Maia Szalavitz Sunday, Apr. 26, 2009 Time Magazine

Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It's not the Netherlands.)

Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
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The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

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In the Talmud of the Jewish tradition, the sage Hillel said: What is hateful to you, do not do to others. This is the whole of the Law; all the rest is commentary.

In the Hindu legend of the Mahabharata, the divine Krishna declared:
This is the sum of duty: Do nothing unto others which would cause you pain
if done to you.

In the Gospel of Matthew in the Christian scriptures, the messiah Jesus says:
Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

In the Buddhist text of the Udanavarga, the student is urged:
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

In the Muslim Hadith of al Nawawi, the prophet Mohammed teaches:
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he
desires for himself.

In the T'ai Shang treatise of Taoism, the seeker is instructed:
Regard your neighbor's gain as your gain, and your neighbor's loss as your
own loss.

In the ancient wisdom of Shinto there is a saying: The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.

The Oglala Lakota spiritual leader Black Elk wrote:
All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.

I saw this and they make a good point for decriminalizing drugs.

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"Filled with mingled cream and amber I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber through the chambers of my brain--Quaintest thoughts--queerest fancies come to life and fade away; Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today"-Edgar Alan Poe