Mr. Tom Murray:

One of the things we learned from talking to our Portuguese colleagues directly was that they strongly believed that without the integrated view, decriminalisation of drugs alone may not be enough in any country. It has to be seen as a holistic perspective. Portugal has a much lower incidence of drug use than many other European countries. The Portuguese see their five-pillar approach as having been successful. The five-pillar approach is: prevention, use discussion, harm reduction, treatment and re-integration. They strongly take the view that, prior to the decriminalisation, the other structures need to be embedded in society. To do it the other way around will cause serious issues.