This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, November 17th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Portugal's experiment in drug decriminalization has been a big success, according to

Glenn Greenwald, author of a report for the

Cato Institute on the subject. At Tuesday's Cato Institute conference on

ending the war on drugs, Greenwald discussed reactions to his report and

what implications his findings might have for the United States.

You wrote a report for the Cato Institute on the Drug Decriminalization that had occurred in Portugal.

There was a varied response to that. Some people

really embraced it. Others were critical. How did you respond to each type of

criticism upon saying it?

Well, I'm actually working on an update

to the report that I wrote in 2009

that includes a response to many of the replies, both positive and negative. So for example there was

one that was that reported to be somewhat critical from the White House Drug

Office as well as from the former White house drugs are two separate replies that both

really kind of skirted the essence of the report and distorted the parts that

it purported to address in part because the tactic of prohibitionists for so long

has been to use speculation and fear-mongering about what would happen if there were, if there

was an elimination of criminalization.

And the argument has always been that drug usage would explode,

that drug-related pathologies would worsen.

...