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Danielle Batist is an experienced freelance journalist, founder of Journopreneur and co-founder of the Constructive Journalism Project. She lived and worked all around the globe and covered global and local stories of poverty, exclusion and injustice. Increasingly, she moved beyond ‘problem-reporting’ to include stories about the solutions she found. She witnessed the birth of the new nation of South Sudan and interviewed the Dalai Lama. She reported for Al Jazeera, BBC and the Guardian and regularly advises independent media organisations on innovation and sustainability. She loves bringing stories to the world and finding the appropriate platforms to do so. The transformation of traditional media fascinates rather than scares her. While both the medium and the message are changing, she believes the need for good storytelling remains.
Portugal’s Drug Decriminalisation Policy Works, But Other Countries Don’t Copy It
I’ve been following stories about the decriminalisation of drugs for several years now (and piqd some of them here too), and one that has always interested me is Portugal. Since the country decriminalised all drugs in 2001, it has seen dramatic drops in overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime. In this in-depth report, journalist Susana Ferreira dives deep into how it works.
Reading about the three pillars the policy rests on, it sounds so logical that one wonders why other countries aren’t following suit. First, the government standpoint is that there’s no such thing as a soft or hard drug, only healthy and unhealthy relationships with drugs. Second, it believes that an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs often conceals frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves. And third, it understands that the eradication of all drugs is an impossible goal. As one official states: “The national policy is to treat each individual differently.”
The story was first published as an essay in The Common Online but has since been re-published in slightly shorter form by the Guardian. The sheer number of social media shares — over 83,000 in the first six weeks — indicate just how well audiences respond to solutions-focused stories. The Guardian recently announced it will be doing more of those. As co-founder of the Constructive Journalism Project, I can only applaud this.
