Good questions but incomplete answers

 Kind of meager.  From Pointers From Portugal on Addiction and the Drug War by Austin Frakt.  

Portugals reform efforts a couple of decades ago or so attracted a lot of attention and discussion.  There was talk about decriminalizing drugs.  How did it all turn out?  Was it worth?  Are drug overdoses down?  Are people back in the economy?  Are lives improved?

Well. . . . 

Many people point to Portugal as an example for the United States to emulate in dealing with illicit drugs.

But Portugal’s experience is often misunderstood. Although it decriminalized the use of all illicit drugs in small amounts in 2001, including heroin and cocaine, that’s different from making them legal. And it did not decriminalize drug trafficking, which would typically involve larger quantities.

Portugal’s law removed incarceration, but people caught possessing or using illicit drugs may be penalized by regional panels made up of social workers, medical professionals and drug experts. The panels can refer people to drug treatment programs, hand out fines or impose community service.

A lot of the benefits over the years from Portugal’s policy shift have come not from decriminalization per se, but in the expansion of substance-use disorder treatment. Such a move might bring the most tangible benefit to the United States.

The US is not Portugal.  Comparisons are hard.  Outcomes were different from that expected.  Effect sizes were small.  Many of the reforms discussed were not ever what was implemented.

There were unexpected increases in murder.  Deaths from overdoses are down.  A lot of money were spent on treatment programs.  It is very hard to tell what lessons can be learned from Portugal that we could confidently forecast as usefully transferrable to the US.  

Some of the reporting raises red flags.

One way much of the United States is similar to Portugal is that penalties for cannabis use have fallen. Portugal’s regional panels typically impose no penalties for cannabis use, the most-used illicit drug in Portugal. In the United States, most states have legalized medical marijuana, and some have legalized it for recreational use.

One consequence of ending incarceration as a penalty in Portugal is that prison overcrowding decreased. The same would be expected to occur in the United States. 

Everything I have read has indicated that sentencing reforms for drugs at the Federal level are unlikely to make much difference.  There are few, if any, casual users who have been sentenced.  If you are in the Federal system for drugs, it is usually in conjunction with large scale trafficking, violence, etc.

There is a more fundamental issue which is even more difficult and is not mentioned at all.  Compared to most of Europe, the US is over-incarcerated and under-policed.  Whatever results have been achieved in Portugal have to address the fact that Portugal as twice the number of police per citizen as does the US.

In the land of freedom, are we going to be able to sell a dramatic increase in policing?  And if not, what is there that remains to be learned from the Portugal experiment that might be usefully transferred to the different conditions of the US?