Norwegian Parliament Agrees to Decriminalize Every Prohibited Drugs

December 20, 2017

Like Portugal, Norway is also going on the path to decriminalize drug substances categorized as illegal. This rational approach is being implemented to treat the drug addicts in a more constructive way instead of throwing them in prisons.

In last week, the Norwegian Parliament agreed to develop laws that would ultimately lead in aiding the state decriminalize every controlled drug substance. A news article reports that a majority of Norwegian lawmakers are of the belief that putting ill substance abusers into rehabilitation centers and enforcing criminal laws on black market makes more sense to fight drug abuse.

But one must remember that this cannot be considered progress towards legalization. Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee, Sveinung Stenslad, has made it clear that this change is intended to address the problem of substance abuse in a non-criminal realm.

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Substance abuse is a major concern in Norway. As per report of the European Monitoring Center for Drug and Addiction, there were nearly 48,000 offences happened in 2014, related to drug laws. In the same time, the country with a population of only five million witnessed around 300 deaths due to drug overdose.

The proposed plan would allow people, caught with small-amount possession of illegal substances, to go into a rehab program instead of being dragged into the justice system. Norway wants to preserve its law enforcement energies and judicial system capacity to deal with black market and its operators. However, the intended amendments in the legislation will take time to get implemented.

As of now, no legalization is under consideration. This joint resolution of the parliament advises the government to introduce an initiative to develop a model society in Norway where use of drug is not considered a crime.

It’s been around 20 years since Portugal has decriminalized drug use. The country has been experiencing benefits of this reform in the form of less deaths because of overdose, less diseases, and higher number of people getting rehabilitated.

Portuguese decriminalization model has also proved that decriminalization is a far effective measure than investing in anti-drug campaigns. Decriminalization measure also became successful in Portugal because the whole society was affected by the menace of drug abuse.

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In 2016, Norway introduced a not-so-successful rehab program to allow drug addicts sentenced to rehabilitation rather than jail. The objective of this new measure was to give another chance to drug addicts to lead drug-free life without getting any criminal charges. However, the program was unable to generate the desired results because people under the treatment was thrown into jails without any warning if they got tested positive or failed to show up in the treatment sessions.

Portugal’s decriminalization model is also successful because offenders cannot be forced to enter rehabilitation programs. Now, it’s expected that the Norwegian government will take follow this same course.

It is unfortunate to see that the US government still sees drug addiction as a poor men’s problem. But in reality, the issue has transcended every area of society. It’s about time that Capitol Hill must consider decriminalizing illegal drugs to fight against substance abuse in a more effective way.

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