Ivan Thirion Completed Research in Portugal on Health-Focused Drug Policy
With the support of Georgetown Americas Institute, Ivan Thirion (SSP '24) traveled to Portugal to conduct field research on the country's demand-based counternarcotics strategy.
This pioneering, health-focused drug policy model treats people with substance use disorders as patients as opposed to criminals, and is considered to be by many experts as an exemplary model to follow due to its success in reducing drug use, drug-related crime, and drug-related incarceration rates over its more than two decades of implementation.
Ivan’s project aimed to understand the policy's successes, deficiencies, and opportunities to advocate for similar models in the Western Hemisphere, specifically in the state of Oregon. A state that decided to bet on the Portuguese approach to address its own opioid crisis, by passing legislation in 2020 to decriminalize drug use and expand its health care services.
Ivan conducted interviews with various stakeholders, including government officials, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, people with substance use disorders, and addiction survivors. The research focused on comparing Portugal's approach - which emphasizes drug decriminalization, harm reduction, and rehabilitation, to the U.S. supply-based strategy.
The project was designed to assess the viability of Portugal's drug policy model for other democracies across the Western Hemisphere to explore the political components necessary for effective drug policy implementation. The research findings aim to contribute to policy reform discussions and pilot harm-reduction and rehabilitation programs in the Americas, a region severely impacted over decades by the failures of the ‘War on Drugs.’