206 Portugal's Radical Drug Policy; Blissful Bhutan

Travel with Rick Steves

Rick Steves

Rick Steves, Public Radio, 721132, Europe, Society & Culture, Places & Travel, Npr, Travel

4.3 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2010

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

The policies of Portugal and Bhutan are on the agenda. We'll talk to the man who authored Portugal's law that dropped criminal penalties against all narcotics users. He'll explain what the intention of the revamped policy was, and how it's actually working out after nearly ten years. And the Himalayan country of Bhutan has strict rules that only allow a small number of escorted tourists in each year. We'll hear how the country that just got TV and the internet in the last decade makes it a priority to promote "gross national happiness." For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Rick Steeves. Today on Travel with Rick Steeves, we're getting an intimate look at two small
0:05.1	countries who found new ways to organize their societies, and they're both radically different
0:10.1	from the rest of us. You probably thought the Netherlands had the world's most
0:14.0	liberal drug policies, but it's actually Portugal. The Portuguese have been treating
0:18.6	recreational drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one for nearly 10 years now.
0:24.0	We'll meet the former drugs are of Portugal who authored the law that abolished drug
0:28.2	penalties and is still in place today. And from High in the Himalayas, we'll meet one of the few people authorized by his government
0:35.6	to escort American tourists into the remote mountain kingdom of Bhutan.
0:40.3	This tiny country is known for its unusual system of measuring progress.
0:45.0	The rest of us use GDP, but the Bhutanese measure their success by a policy of gross national happiness.
0:52.0	The creative approaches to life in Portugal and Bhutan.
0:56.0	It's just ahead on Travel with Rick Steves.
0:59.0	Hi, I'm Rick Steves. My travels have shown me that some countries will take radically different approaches to common problems and issues facing all of us.
1:09.0	And we can learn something from their examples.
1:12.0	Today on Travel with Rick Steeves, we're looking at two such cases.
1:16.0	A little later in the hour, we'll hear how Bhutan regulates tourism,
1:20.0	controlling who can visit and where they can go in order to prevent large-scale tourism from
1:24.4	overrunning their small Himalayan kingdom and its fledgling democracy.
1:29.5	Let's start with a different issue in Europe.
1:32.3	As a whole, Europeans tend to have relatively more liberal
1:35.2	laws concerning recreational drugs than we do in the United States.
1:39.8	If I ask you which country goes the furthest in decriminalizing drugs, you'd probably say the Netherlands.
	...

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