There seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread about exactly what Portugal did, and the ramifications for the U.S. in terms of time-frame and difficulty.
What Portugal did was decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs. They did not legalize them. There is a huge difference. Decriminalization essentially means that possession of small amounts of drugs is no longer an offense that warrants an arrest and jail time. In a decriminalized system an officer can still stop someone for drugs, but they can only write them a ticket- similar to speeding, jaywalking or illegal parking.
This makes a huge difference for a number of reasons. First, it's easier to implement politically because the substances are still illegal. Second, it's less costly because people caught with small amounts are not caught up in the justice system for years, and only pay a small fine. Third, it decreases the adversarial nature of the "war on drugs" because being caught with drugs is no longer a life-changing event.
Marijuana possession is already decriminalized in many states in the U.S. (California, Colorado, New York and Oregon off the top of my head). It is clearly not an impossibility to implement politically, and in fact the trend in the U.S. is already on its way. An important hurdle is that we do not have any states that have yet decriminalized "harder" drugs like heroin and cocaine, but it is simply a matter of time. Pressure on lawmakers in the form of education, money and votes will in fact work. It just takes time.
> California, Colorado, New York and Oregon off the top of my head
All decriminalization is not alike. In New York, for example, decriminalization is in in name only, because police can easily exploit a loophole that allows them to charge people with possession of more than an ounce (criminal) even if they only have a few grams (not criminal). Because of this, New York City arrests more people (per-capita and in total) than any other city in the entire world. Compare to the Netherlands, which also has 'only' decriminalized marijuana.
In New York, the police will do a stop and frisk, tell people to empty their pockets, and then charge people with displaying the drug in public when they obey the order to empty their pockets. Is this the loophole you mean? Or is your loophole a different one?
More or less. There are other variations on how to exploit the same clause in the law, but basically, marijuana that is 'open to public view or burning' can be prosecuted as if it is 28+ grams, regardless of the actual amount.
The history behind how New York's marijuana decriminalization and this loophole came to pass, especially in contrast to the Rockefeller drug laws, is actually a rather fascinating example of the sheer racial/socioeconomic hypocrisy within US drug laws.
If it's for medical use and you're all registered as a patient, it's now technically legal under local and state laws, but illegal under federal law.
TL;DR the laws are a mess and if the FBI catches you, you're still pretty screwed. We need to work on reforming the laws at a federal level, since that overrides all lower laws. It'd be at least cool to have the federal law just refuse to say one way or the other on marijuana, so that states could decide what is right for them.
Does that indeed override the state laws? Many states have laws against things that are not federally prohibited, and legal in other states that do not prohibit those things.
States can be more restrictive but they cannot be less restrictive. Thus if the nation declares that marijuana is illegal a state cannot declare that it is legal (see the medical marijuana raids in California). And if the nation declares that alcohol is legal then a state can make it illegal within that state.
And this is the opposite of what the founders would have wanted, I'd guess. The constitution mandates that powers not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved by the states. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure the federal authority to regulate drugs was "found" in the interstate commerce clause as part of the food and drug reforms in the early 1900s. At the time, there were definitely problems but like all big government intervention the cure itself is now out of control and we now have an agency (FDA) that has its hands in about 1/4 of the GDP.
This is why the first two federal laws targeted at prohibiting drugs didn't actually do it directly - they did it by way of taxes. The Marihuana Stamp Tax Act (1937) is the most famous, but it was preceded by another act that targeted proper narcotics (morphine, etc.). I believe it was the Harisson act, but I'm not certain.
In any case, the 1937 bill created an impossible-to-satisfy tax structure, because they knew that a direct prohibition would have been deemed unconstitutional. Unfortunately, by 1970, everyone had forgotten and the Controlled Substances Act passed easily.
This is sorta-kinda true, but not quite. While the residents of a state are technically held to the union of state and federal laws, the jurisdictional issues are important. If a state declares something legal, that means that state-level LEOs won't enforce the federal laws. Those laws are still in effect, but if you're a deadbeat twenty-something toking up behind the liquor store, you care about the subset of laws being enforced by the local beat cop, not those being enforced by the FBI.
Actually what Portugal did was much more profound than just changing the law: They reformed their system to treat drugs as a health issue rather than a criminal issue. That also changed the perception of the society towards the issue.
In the US even though in some states marijuana is decriminalized, drugs are still treated as a criminal issue.
>Marijuana possession is already decriminalized in many states in the U.S...
But it's still illegal at the federal level, and federal penalties are quite severe. Prosecutors can force you to plead to other charges with the threat of turning you over to the feds on marijuana possession.
What Portugal did was decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs. They did not legalize them. There is a huge difference. Decriminalization essentially means that possession of small amounts of drugs is no longer an offense that warrants an arrest and jail time. In a decriminalized system an officer can still stop someone for drugs, but they can only write them a ticket- similar to speeding, jaywalking or illegal parking.
This makes a huge difference for a number of reasons. First, it's easier to implement politically because the substances are still illegal. Second, it's less costly because people caught with small amounts are not caught up in the justice system for years, and only pay a small fine. Third, it decreases the adversarial nature of the "war on drugs" because being caught with drugs is no longer a life-changing event.
Marijuana possession is already decriminalized in many states in the U.S. (California, Colorado, New York and Oregon off the top of my head). It is clearly not an impossibility to implement politically, and in fact the trend in the U.S. is already on its way. An important hurdle is that we do not have any states that have yet decriminalized "harder" drugs like heroin and cocaine, but it is simply a matter of time. Pressure on lawmakers in the form of education, money and votes will in fact work. It just takes time.